Billy the Kid meets Pancho Villa in Young Guns 3: Dead or Alive

Back in 1949 / ’50, a man called Brushy Bill Roberts claimed to be the legendary Wild West outlaw known as Billy the Kid, having reached the age of 90. There was a lot of evidence to back up his claim and he had the support of people who were known to have associated with Billy the Kid, but the authorities discredited him. One person who believes that Brushy Bill Roberts was Billy the Kid is Emilio Estevez, who played Billy the Kid in the 1988 Western Young Guns and its 1990 sequel Young Guns II (where he also put on old age makeup to play a couple scenes as Brushy Bill). That’s how Estevez is able to move forward with Young Guns 3: Dead or Alive, a project he has been developing with John Fusco, the writer of the Young Guns films, since 2019. Last month, it was confirmed that Young Guns 3 has secured a tax credit to film in the state of New Mexico, and now it has been revealed that the plot of the film involves Billy the Kid meeting the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa!

Billy the Kid was supposedly killed in 1881, but Young Guns 3 will allow us to catch up with the character thirty years after he faked his death – and show us how he gets caught up in the Mexican Revolution, which lasted from 1910 through 1920.

During an interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Estevez explained why he decided to return to the Young Guns franchise: “I’m gonna say something that will probably scare you, but playing Billy the Kid, that character is probably the closest I’ve ever played to anybody who’s like me. Not that I’m sociopathic. However, it’s probably the most fun I’ve ever had playing a character. He was so beautifully unhinged. And from what we know, historically speaking, that is who he was. He was a prankster, he was a jokester, people adored him, but they were also terrified of him because you never knew what you were going to get on any given day. I just had such an affinity for the character, and over the years I’ve become very fond of the desert and the Southwest and I feel very at home in New Mexico. … In this current climate of nostalgia, if I’m going to get dragged back kicking and screaming, how about I not get dragged kicking or screaming – (go back to) something I really enjoyed. Let’s figure out a way to reboot this, rediscover this, re-examine this, however you want to frame it.“

So far this year, Estevez (who will be directing the sequel in addition to starring in it) has been scouting locations, secured the New Mexico tax credit, and is working with a casting director. He just got a list of potential cast members this month and is looking it over. They may or may not end up being involved, but he mentioned D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (Reservation Dogs) and Anthony Ramos (Twisters) as talented young actors that would be fitting for the story he’s telling with this film.

As for what that story is: “It does center on a bunch of new Regulators, mostly Latino, Indigenous people, and most of the film takes place in Mexico. It falls on the eve of the Mexican Revolution. So you have a young Pancho Villa, who’s 28 at the time, you have his group of soldados, true believers and revolutionaries who are all kids. You had a human trafficking ring going on on the border, he was taking kids from the Pueblos and consigning them to his army, they were grabbing kids off the orphan train. There was a whole cabal of people, the Germans were there. There’s so much history that was going on on the border. Of course, during the Mexican Revolution the Germans were funding Pancho Villa because the Americans were not interested, they looked down their nose at Mexico, so the Germans were providing gold and arms and they were also spying on America. This was a few years before World War I. So all of this was happening south of the border and Billy the Kid meets Pancho Villa and he is asked to come along and train his young men. So that’s basically the story. I become the Tunstall character in many ways and bring this group of mostly Latino young men through the paces and then all hell breaks loose. … It’s a big Latino cast, a big Indigenous people cast, without feeling like it’s ‘Oh, God, they made the woke version of Young Guns.’ This is natural. This is organic to what was happening at the time.“

So far, the confirmed cast only includes returning actors Estevez, Lou Diamond Phillips (reprising the role of Jose Chavez y Chavez), and Christian Slater (reprising the role of “Arkansas” Dave Rudabaugh). Jon Bon Jovi, who provided music for Young Guns II and the song “Wanted Dead or Alive,” has remained friends with Estevez and is said to be “very enthusiastic about being involved with this,” so we might be hearing some more Bon Jovi music in Young Guns 3.

And, if all goes well, the franchise could continue on. Estevez said, “If you want to continue the narrative of the Brushy Bill story, there’s a potential for 3, 4, and 5. Whether I’m in the next installment or not. But I already have an idea for what 4 is.“

Are you looking forward to Young Guns 3: Dead or Alive? What do you think of the story Estevez and Fusco have come up with? Let us know by leaving a comment below. There was a time when I considered Young Guns to be my all-time favorite movie, so I’m very hyped to see this sequel moving forward.

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