For Westerns, box office can be good, bad and ugly

For Hollywood, the American Western is as iconic as, well, the American West. Shooting one, though, can be a beast, particularly if you aim for authenticity — a must for director/star/co-writer Seth MacFarlane, whose comedy A Million Ways to Die in the West opened Friday. MacFarlane shot the film in New Mexico and explains that "if you're going to shoot in Santa Fe, allow about 187 additional days for weather. I spent most of that production swearing at the wind." The film, about a cowardly farmer (MacFarlane) who must face a gunslinger in Liam Neeson to win Charlize Theron, says Westerns "seem like a lot of fun to shoot. And if you want to do them right, you have to do them out on locations. The trade-off is, you just have to deal with the (uncooperative) weather. The next time we do this, we're doing it at Disney Ranch." That may make shooting easier, but the climate can be just as unforgiving at the box office, where only eight Westerns have ever made more than $100 million, according to Box Office Mojo. Yet the genre still surprises with the occasional fistful of dollars. Here are five Westerns since 2010 that managed to earn at least $150 million in worldwide ticket sales, along with the movie's silver bullet that propelled it at the box office: