The real reason they don't make Westerns anymore

One of the benefits of film storytelling is its ability to transport the viewers to times and places completely different from their everyday experience. From the opening to closing credits, we can pretend to be in different galaxies, in foreign lands we may have never seen, or in eras past or future that we have no hope of ever experiencing in the real world. That explains, in part, the allure of Westerns, which give us the opportunity to journey back over a century before concrete and asphalt tamed the wilderness.

There was a time when you could hardly throw a rock in Hollywood without it hitting the saloon doors of a Western film production. When films were still silent, Westerns proved one of the most popular genres. Their popularity dipped soon after sound was introduced to motion pictures, but starting in the late 1930s, their star rose again, and they remained one of the most popular movie genres throughout the '50s.

But in more recent years, the Western has started to disappear as much as the once wild frontier it portrays. In spite of studios throwing gobs of money at science fiction and fantasy films which likewise transport audiences to different times and places, stories of showdowns at high noon and masked horsemen robbing steam locomotives hardly ever find their way into theaters. Let's take a look at the real reasons why studios aren't making Westerns anymore.