Why do these 2 western movies have the same title and were released only 8 years apart

Summary

• Two separate Western films released in 1987 and 1995 share the same title: The Quick and the Dead.
• Despite the shared title, these films feature completely unrelated stories and characters.
• The phrase “The Quick and the Dead” originates from the Bible, linking to the inclusion of gunfights in both films, where speed determines survival.

The western genre had a case of déjà vu in 1987 and 1995: two separate films with the exact same name were released. There are many pairs of movies that have identical titles in history, even though they have nothing to do with each other. Most of them share a name because of how short and generic their titles are, like 2002 and 2006. Invincible movies. The Western version of this is a special case, however, as the shared title is a rather unusual phrase and upcoming Western films are highly unlikely to repeat it.

In one of the genre’s most unusual coincidences, both films came out only eight years apart, but didn’t cause much confusion at the time. That’s because one was a little-known TV movie starring a major western star, while the other was one of the best westerns of the 90s. Although both are linked together by their title, there are still several aspects of each film that set them apart from each other.

The Fast and the Dead 1987 and 1995 Movies Explained (Related?)

Although they shared a title, they were completely separate stories

These two films are titled The quick and the dead. The first version, a 1987 TV movie starring Sam Elliott, was an adaptation of Lous L’Amour’s book of the same name. Elliot stars as Con Valian, a stranger who protects a family on their journey west, similar to his role in Yellowstone spinoff 1883. The 1995 version featured an all-star cast of Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe and more. Stone plays a female shooter, Ellen, who participates in a shooting tournament to kill her father’s killer, Hackman’s Herod. Curiously, both the films have no relation to each other.

The quick and the dead
(1987) is available to watch on YouTube and
The quick and the dead
(1995) is available to stream on Fubo TV.

What The Fast and The Dead really means and how it fits the two films

It originally meant “the living and the dead” and refers to shootouts in movies

The phrase “the quick and the dead” finds its origin in several translations of the Bible, such as the King James Version, as well as in the Book of Mormon. The word “quickly” as used in these books actually has a different, older meaning than the modern definition. In the Bible, “quickly“meant”aliveso the phrase originally meant “the living and the dead,” or, in fewer words, all of them. The phrase is often used in the Bible to describe Jesus Christ as the judge of both the living and the dead. of William Shakespeare Hamlet also uses the same phrase with the same meaning.

The original definition also helps connect each film to its title. In the modern sense, The quick and the dead refers to shootouts, a staple of the western genre. In a shootout, whoever draws first usually wins and survives the fight, so the faster guy lives and the slower guy dies. This also ties back to the original meaning of the phrase, as fast is still used as a synonym for life, albeit in a more poetic sense. The fact that both films end in shootouts only cements them as deserving of the title and makes them one of the strangest coincidences in the western genre.