Classic Trailer Rewatch: ‘Wild Wild West’ – Will Smith’s 1999 Disaster

Classic Trailer Rewatch: ‘Wild Wild West’ – Will Smith’s 1999 Disaster

by Alex Billington
March 22, 2026
Source: YouTube

“Gotta stick to what we each do best!” Time for a throwback to 1999 and a whole different era of Hollywood movies. Who remembers this one? More importantly – who can forget this one? Even though it’s so awful, I still remember it. Wild Wild West is a famously bad 90s movie creation that became an infamously bad box office failure in 1999 – just two years after Men in Black was a huge box office smash for Will Smith. Directed by MIB’s director Barry Sonnenfeld, Will Smith stars in this western-steam punk fusion action comedy remix. The two best special agents in the Wild West must save President Grant from the clutches of a diabolical, wheelchair-bound, steampunk-savvy, Confederate scientist bent on revenge for losing the Civil War. Kevin Kline co-stars as an inventor, with Kenneth Branagh as bad guy Dr. Arliss Loveless, Salma Hayek, Ted Levine, M. Emmet Walsh, and Bai Ling as Miss Mae Lee East. Many movie fans may also know that Kevin Smith used to tell a story about how a producer tried to get a giant mechanical spider into a movie – and Smith refused until it then ended up in Wild Wild West instead – becoming an iconically bad villain gimmick. These two classic 90s trailers below were scanned from original 35mm prints and uploaded to YouTube for our enjoyment. Fun to hear Big Willie’s WWW rap song for this film right in the trailer, too.

Here’s the two original trailers (+ poster) for Barry Sonnenfeld’s film Wild Wild West, found on YouTube:

If you think special government agent James West is fast with a six-shooter, wait’ll he lays a quip on you! Will Smith plays West, reuniting with Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld in an effects-loaded, shoot-from-the-lip spectacular. Kevin Kline is inventor Artemus Gordon, teamed up for a daring assignment: stop legless Dr. Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh) & his diabolical plot for a Disunited States of America. Salma Hayek is mysterious adventuress Rita Escobar. And all manner of geared-up 1860s gadgets—from belt-buckle derringers to surprise-packed billiard balls to a walking, 8-story, steam-and-steel tarantula—help make Wild Wild West a Wow! Wild Wild West is directed by American filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld, his 6th movie at the time after making Get Shorty (1995) and Men in Black (1997) followed by Big Trouble (2002) after. The screenplay is by S. S. Wilson, Brent Maddock, Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman; from a story by Jim Thomas & John Thomas. Based on “The Wild Wild West” CBS TV series created by Michael Garrison. It originally opened in theaters on June 30th, 1999 in the summer – and was a infamous box office bomb barely making $222 million worldwide. It has never been re-released since. Anyone actually a fan of this?

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