The Big Name Director and Actors Who Were at One Point Tied to the Classic Comedy THREE AMIGOS!
Three Amigos! is a perfect classic comedy starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Chevy Chase as actors who accept an invitation to a Mexican village to perform their onscreen bandit fighter roles, unaware that it is the real thing. It’s got singing, dancing, gun fights, romance, and so much more. And while the three stars are perfect and the comedic timing couldn’t be better, it turns out the film went through a lot of stars and one big name director before it settled into the movie we know and love today.
In an old interview with Vulture, we learn that Steve Martin first mentioned the project, then named The Three Caballeros, in a 1980 Playboy interview. Over the course of Three Amigos’s long road to release in 1986, the film changed titles, had numerous actors drop in and out (along with a certain big-name director), and was trimmed down by the studio for the initial version’s excessive length, which resulted in a few well-known performers being cut out of the movie completely.
Martin was always going to star in the film, and was originally going to pair up with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, who were looking to make another film together (which would have been their third). Belushi and Aykroyd ended up starring alongside each other in the comedy Neighbors instead, which didn’t do so well in the box office. It’s not clear whether Aykroyd and Belushi dropped out of Three Caballeros prior to Belushi’s death or if they were still attached at the time of his passing.
Iconic director Steven Spielberg was considering helming Three Amigos in the early ‘80s, considering making it his next directing project after Raiders of the Lost Ark. Spielberg’s top casting choices for the Amigos were Bill Murray for Dusty Bottoms (Chevy Chase’s character), Robin Williams for Ned Nederlander (Martin Short’s character), and Steve Martin for Lucky Day (the same role he played in the actual movie). Despite having strongly considered directing the movie, Spielberg chose to make E.T. instead, a good move in everyone’s opinion.
Murray and Martin were great together in Little Shop of Horrors, and on Steve Martin’s TV specials, so it would have been fun to see them team up in a bigger way. Williams may have been a difficult actor to star in an ensemble, as he was such a huge personality and he took improvisation to a whole new level.
John Landis, who became the director of Three Amigos after Steven Spielberg passed, has said that Rick Moranis would have been his choice for the third Amigo had Martin Short been unavailable. Moranis and Short are both alumni of SCTV, and Moranis had a history with Steve Martin as well. Moranis would have been great in the movie, but his career was taking off as he was making hits like the Ghostbusters films, Spaceballs, and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids at the time.
It all worked out just right, as Three Amigos! is comedy gold. So, as fun as it could have been in all these other iterations, I’m glad it landed where it did.