Show Business: The Making of Apocalypse Next

Director Michael Cimino shoots a $30 million western

The Johnson County War, a bloody skirmish involving cattlemen, rustlers, vigilantes and the U.S. Cavalry in 1892 Wyoming, ranks well below Jenkins' Ear as a minor footnote to history. No longer. In fact, if the Guinness Book of World Records ever devises an entry for History's Most Expensive Minor Footnote, the frontier fracas may find itself at the top of the list. Credit for the elevation goes to Michael Cimino, 38, the Oscar-winning director of The Deer Hunter. Cimino's new film, Heaven's Gate, will dramatize the Johnson County War as lavishly as his last film did the war in Viet Nam, but the price will be steeper. The Deer Hunter was a $12 million movie. By the time Heaven's Gate is completed in October, it will probably cost more than twice that much.

Cimino submitted a script for the movie last fall to United Artists. The studio agreed to finance the picture for $7.5 million. "A really well-done western hadn't been made in a long time," explains U.A. Senior Vice President David Field. The studio's faith in Cimino was undiminished when the director's script rewrites necessitated a bigger budget of $11.6 million. The film had become more sweeping than a conventional western. It opens in the 1870s with the Harvard graduation of the hero, James Averill, who, like many of his generation, went West to help settle the land. Ten years later, as a federal lawman in Johnson County, he sides against his own class in the growing war between landed gentry and immigrant farmers. His story incorporates themes of love, class struggle and war. Says Kris Kristofferson, who plays Averill: "The movie ends where The Great Gatsby begins."

With Christopher Walken, John Hurt and Jeff Bridges in other major roles, shooting started April 15, just after the Academy Awards. "It was apparent within a few weeks that Cimino was going to go over budget," says Field. "It wasn't apparent until the summer that he was going to go seriously over."

Cimino decided to shoot much of the film in a majestic section of Montana's Glacier National Park. The other major location is the picturesque mining town of Wallace, Idaho. Cimino built an entire frontier street there. He also built a period roller rink called Heaven's Gate near the production headquarters in Kalispell, Mont.

The logistics of making an epic are awesome. Cimino, like Napoleon, is not the kind of strategist to skip a legion. The film involves more than 1,200 extras; from cravats to camisoles, their costumes had to be authentic. He went to Philadelphia to find a top-hat maker, and even farther afield to track down contemporary firearms and long-retired craftsmen who could make scores of wagons. From Denver, Cimino ordered a 19th century locomotive that had to be rerouted because it was too big for many tunnels. Then came the roundup of 80 wagon teams. Using fewer horses, says Cimino, "would have been like trying to show Fifth Avenue with only ten taxicabs."