Why The Good, The Bad And The Ugly 2 Never Happened

Screen Rant

By Kate Bove

July 7, 2024

Known as the quintessential spaghetti Western, Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly never received a sequel. While it may come as a surprise that The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 2 never came to fruition, the 1966 film still has quite an enduring legacy. Starring Clint Eastwood as "the Good", Lee Van Cleef as "the Bad", and Eli Wallach as "the Ugly," The Good, the Bad and the Ugly's filming locations were mostly centered in Spain — a hallmark of a sub-genre helmed by Italian and Spanish filmmakers and production companies.

As the title somewhat suggests, the movie chronicles the efforts of three gunslingers as they search for a cache of Confederate gold. Set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is packed with Leone's signature techniques, from long shots and close-ups to incredibly tense gun duels. A box office success, the spaghetti Western helped launch Clint Eastwood to a new level of stardom. However, despite its impressive commercial success, staggering star power, and exemplary filmmaking, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly never received a direct sequel.

Although it never came to fruition, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 2 had been planned out. Screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni, who worked on numerous spaghetti Westerns, had penned the original film alongside Age & Scarpelli and Leone. In the wake of the film's success, Vincenzoni wrote a treatment for the sequel. Sergio Leone was approached to produce the film, while Gremlins filmmaker Joe Dante had been tapped to direct the proposed sequel, tentatively titled The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 2. With no interest in working on another Western, Leone shot down the project.

Precisely how The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 2 fell apart isn't entirely clear. Reportedly, the acclaimed spaghetti Western director didn't want his masterpiece's title or characters to be recycled in a sequel. Vincenzoni had previously cited a long-forming rift between himself and Leone as a key part of the equation. Regardless, without Leone's stamp of approval, the sequel died. According to Vincenzoni, Leone didn't feel "comfortable" sharing the profits from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly — and that financial awkwardness created a years-long rift between the two filmmakers (via A Fistful of Leone).

In Marco Giusti's Dizionario del western all'italiana, which delves into some of the spaghetti Western genre's most compelling elements, the author outlines some elements of the canceled movie's plot. Allegedly, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 2 would have been set 20 years after the original The Good, the Bad and the Ugly's ending, and it would have followed Tuco (Wallach) as he pursued Blondie's (Eastwood) grandson for the Confederate gold. Evidently, Eastwood expressed his interest in returning for a sequel to the hit film, which may have cast Blondie as its narrator (via Dizionario del western all'italiana).

One of the three movies in the Dollars Trilogy, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is linked to other spaghetti Westerns despite not having a direct sequel. In order to capture movie-goers' interest, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was marketed as the third and final installment in the Dollars Trilogy, which also included A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. A pure marketing gimmick, the connections between Dollars Trilogy movies weren't intended by Leone, so The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 2 wouldn't have been a fourth installment in the Dollars Trilogy.