Principal photography on The Electric Horseman took place across Nevada and Utah in late 1978 and early 1979, but director Sydney Pollack was fighting more than the logistics of a sprawling location shoot. The screenplay was still being revised during production, with Pollack later recalling that he wrote roughly half of each night's material before the next day's filming. Yellow legal pads were scattered around the production, and he joked that choosing long routes between locations gave him time to finish the next scene. That improvisational method kept the film moving, but it also made the shoot unusually vulnerable to delays and escalating costs. The most notorious setback came during a seemingly simple 20-second kissing scene between Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. Traveling thunderstorms repeatedly interrupted filming, forcing the cast and crew to wait for the weather to clear and then reset the scene. The moment ultimately required 48 takes and cost approximately $280,000, an extraordinary expense for a brief romantic beat. The production finished about $1.3 million over its original budget, reaching a final cost of roughly $12.5 million. The overrun did not become a commercial disaster: Columbia's domestic release earned nearly $62 million, and the film became a box-office success despite its troubled, weather-delayed shoot.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1970s
The $280,000 Thunderstorm Kiss That Helped Push The Electric Horseman Over Budget
The Electric Horseman / 1970s
Principal photography on The Electric Horseman took place across Nevada and Utah in late 1978 and early 1979, but director Sydney Pollack was fighting more than the logistics of a sprawling location shoot. The screenplay was still being revised during production, with Pollack later recalling that he wrote roughly half of each night's material before the next day's filming. Yellow legal pads were scattered around the production, and he joked that choosing long routes between locations gave him time to finish the next scene. That improvisational method kept the film moving, but it also made the shoot unusually vulnerable to delays and escalating costs. The most notorious setback came during a seemingly simple 20-second kissing scene between Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. Traveling thunderstorms repeatedly interrupted filming, forcing the cast and crew to wait for the weather to clear and then reset the scene. The moment ultimately required 48 takes and cost approximately $280,000, an extraordinary expense for a brief romantic beat. The production finished about $1.3 million over its original budget, reaching a final cost of roughly $12.5 million. The overrun did not become a commercial disaster: Columbia's domestic release earned nearly $62 million, and the film became a box-office success despite its troubled, weather-delayed shoot.
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