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Gunslingers Director on Dorff-Jackson Dynamic, Influences & More

Writer-director Brian Skiba spoke to Bleeding Cool about the brotherly dynamic in the Lionsgate Western, filming, influences and more.

Writer and director Brian Skiba has accomplished a lot in his near two decades of work. Starting with shorts, he made his theatrical debut in 2009's Blood Moon Rising. He's worked on a variety of genres with horror, holiday, action, and thrillers, including The 2nd (2020), Clear Cut (2024), and Guns of Redemption (2025). His latest is the Western, Gunslingers, for Lionsgate. The film follows a wanted man (Stephen Dorff) who surfaces in a small Kentucky town and a bounty on his head as forces start closing in. As brothers face off against one another and bullets tear the town to shreds, this lightning-fast gunslinger makes his enemies pay the ultimate price for their greed. Skiba spoke to Bleeding Cool about whether he had more backstory between Dorff and Jeremy Kent Jackson's rival sibling characters, Thomas and Robert Keller, his most difficult sequence, and filmmaking influences.

Gunslingers Writer-Director Brian Skiba on Keller Brothers Dynamic & Film Influences

Bleeding Cool: Can you break down the dynamic between Stephen and Jeremy's characters and how that came together? Was there anything else that you had planned or perhaps got cut in the final film that delved more into the brothers' story?
There were some flashbacks littered throughout the opening act of the movie. The problem was that it slowed the film down, and the running time was too long. I was told to trim, so if you were to say there is a director's cut, that's probably another 15-20 minutes. It's a slower beginning, delves more into the brothers a little bit, and tells the backstory of Heather's character (Val) and the brothers. There's this thing, but I don't think it's necessarily needed, either. To keep the pacing fresh, fast, and hot is a better move in this genre, and not over-explaining.

When we initially made those cuts, there were a couple of people in the camp who were like, "Oh, I miss it," and I was like, "No, you got to watch it fresh. Stop thinking about what used to be there. Watch it fresh. Do you feel like we need those things?" And I don't, and ultimately, they all said, "You're right, you know." There were some things, but the relationship between the two is clear. There's the fight over a woman that they both love, and then there's the fact that they were both involved in the killing of the Rockefellers and their brothers trying to live.

What was the most difficult scene for you to kind of get through in a film?

The wagon sequence was difficult because it was raining a lot. It was before spring started, so it was still cold. We wrapped on a Friday, whatever, April 4th or 5th or something like that is when we filmed last year. This time of year, in Kentucky, it's super cold and rainy. Spring is about to hit. We had mud everywhere, and we had to try to do this wagon work on these muddy roads. That was a little challenging. We were out there on and off for three days, getting all that wagon work done.

One of the best sequences was the final gunfight, especially when Cage busts out those guns. Everything about that reminded me of 'Face/Off' (1997), the way he so smoothly transitioned, and the gunplay. What are your biggest influences as a filmmaker?

Some of my biggest influences were those Westerns from the '70s and '80s, any of Eastwood's Westerns; my family and I watched them like crazy. I was influenced by anything action. I watched everything [Arnold] Schwarzenegger and [Sylvester] Stallone that I could get my hands on, that was 'Total Recall' (1990) with Paul Verhoeven. Those types of filmmakers were doing practical effects. It was bloody, it was cool, a little bit of style, those are my influences.

Gunslingers, which also stars Costas Mandylor, William McNamara, Mohamed Karim, Scarlet Stallone, Bre Blair, Forrest Wilder, Forrie J. Smith, Laurie Love, Eric Mabius, Mitchell Hoog,, and Ava Monroe Tadross is in theaters, on-demand and digital.

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