Country endured a turbulent development period before cameras settled in Iowa. The Ladd Company was initially supposed to finance the film but withdrew its commitment, and several other studios rejected the project before The Walt Disney Company acquired it for the relatively new Touchstone Pictures label. Hal Ashby was originally attached to direct, yet departed soon after Disney became involved. Screenwriter William D. Wittliff was then briefly hired to direct his own screenplay, but he and Jessica Lange clashed over the film’s visual approach: Lange wanted a grittier, more hard-edged depiction of rural hardship. Wittliff ultimately left amicably and Richard Pearce took over. The screenplay itself also continued to evolve, with Lange’s real-life partner Sam Shepard contributing uncredited rewrites that reduced its sentimentality and pushed it toward greater realism. The succession of financiers, directors, and competing creative visions made the film’s path to production almost as precarious as the farm crisis it portrayed.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1980s
The Troubled Road from Hal Ashby to Disney: Country’s Directors Kept Changing
Country / 1980s
Country endured a turbulent development period before cameras settled in Iowa. The Ladd Company was initially supposed to finance the film but withdrew its commitment, and several other studios rejected the project before The Walt Disney Company acquired it for the relatively new Touchstone Pictures label. Hal Ashby was originally attached to direct, yet departed soon after Disney became involved. Screenwriter William D. Wittliff was then briefly hired to direct his own screenplay, but he and Jessica Lange clashed over the film’s visual approach: Lange wanted a grittier, more hard-edged depiction of rural hardship. Wittliff ultimately left amicably and Richard Pearce took over. The screenplay itself also continued to evolve, with Lange’s real-life partner Sam Shepard contributing uncredited rewrites that reduced its sentimentality and pushed it toward greater realism. The succession of financiers, directors, and competing creative visions made the film’s path to production almost as precarious as the farm crisis it portrayed.
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