Jonah Hex: Josh Brolin Says He Will “Never Stop Sh-tting” on DC Movie

In a new interview, actor Josh Brolin was blunt about Jonah Hex, the “s–tty f—ing movie” that he starred in alongside Megan Fox and John Malkovich. The star, who has since gone on to appear in a number of actually-successful comic book movies including Deadpool 2 and Avengers: Endgame, promised that he won’t ever relent in his criticism of Jonah Hex — although he has decided to tone down his criticism of some of the other individuals involved with the production. Brolin, who has also taken aim at some of his other less-successful projects, including Amazon’s Outer Range.

The difference between Outer Range, which he said confused him, and Jonah Hex, which he genuinely seems to hate, is night and day. And in a moment he had to know would be the headline in nerd circles, Brolin said he would “never stop s–tting” on Hex.

“I won’t ever stop shitting on Jonah Hex,” Brolin told GQ, “because it was a s—ty f—ing movie!”

Still, he said, he has stopped attacking director Jimmy Hayward personally. In the past, Brolin has criticized the filmmaker for being in over his head and not up to the task. In the time since his last public comments on Hayward, the two have reconnected — only for Brolin to learn that Hayward has been dealing with an incredibly painful battle with bone cancer. 

“It reminded me [that] you can’t just keep s—ting on somebody,” Brolin told the magazine. “I don’t know what the f–k’s going on in his life. I mean, total facial reconstruction, the whole thing.”

To be fair, Hayward also apologized for his role in the film’s failure — and in some more recent remarks, Brolin admitted that it was both himself and Warner Bros. who brought Hayward on board because they needed a director right away.

“It was not successful creatively or monetarily,” Brolin said last year. “I mean, everybody knows how I feel about Jonah Hex. But the biggest thing with Jonah Hex is rushing into hiring somebody. I remember Jeff Robinov, who I’m still close with, who was running Warner Brothers at the time and he was like, ‘Look, you’ve got to get a director in the next two weeks, otherwise we’ve got to can this thing. And then you meet somebody who has a lot of knowledge, [director] Jimmy Hayward, and I remember it didn’t feel right. I loved that he was excited, but he just didn’t have the experience and he didn’t treat it like I would imagine somebody would want to treat it — to run back to their house at the end of their every day and watch tonal inspirations and [Martin] Scorsese movies or this or that. He would be out partying instead.” 

He added, “And not that I had a ton of pull then, but I brought in Megan [Fox,] who I thought was perfect for that role. Maybe not the best actress at that moment, but for that type of parody, forget it. Her, at that moment? You couldn’t do better than that. And [Michael] Fassbender? One of our best actors, who had done Shame and Hunger, are you kidding me? Malkovich, who had just been ripped off by Bernie Madoff, and we’re asking him to do it for a third of his price. He said yes. I mean, f-ck, I still owe these people. Michael Shannon was in it, he was cut out. We just asked Michael to do George and Tammy because I pulled out of it, and he took my place and was amazing in it. So the intention was there, I just think we made a big mistake with the director — not to blame it all at him, because that was my choice, that was my bad choice.”