Young Guns 3: Lou Diamond Phillips on who is holding up the sequel

Lou Diamond Phillips would still love to do Young Guns 3, but reveals who is stopping the sequel from getting made.

It’s been thirty-four years since the last Young Guns movie was released, and although the cast seems game to return for Young Guns 3, it hasn’t happened. While speaking on the Inside of You podcast hosted by Michael Rosenbaum, Lou Diamond Phillips dropped a few details about the long-awaited sequel and who is holding it up.

When asked if he would consider doing Young Guns 3, Phillips said, “Not only would I consider it, I said yes to it.” The actor explained that Emilio Estevez had written a “great script” in the last few years and had bumped the timeline forward “to put us at the age we are now.“

“Without giving too much away, those of us whose deaths were off-camera get to come back,” Phillips teased, adding that original writer John Fusco was onboard and Estevez was also going to direct it. The project actually got further ahead than you might think, with Estevez having done much of location scouting and putting together plenty of storyboards. So, what happened? Phillips said that Morgan Creek has “put the kibosh on it for the time being.“

Phillips continued, “For some reason, Morgan Creek would like to control the property, but as far as I know, they’re not doing anything with it, so it just seems really counterproductive to me.” Morgan Creek had announced a reboot of Young Guns in 2017, but as Phillips said, they haven’t done a heck of a lot with it. I’d say let the original cast return for Young Guns 3 before it gets too late.

Estevez spoke about the potential sequel last year. “It all comes down to the legal minds that work out IP. Listen, I’m ready to go. We have a terrific draft and if we can figure out the copyrights on all of this, and if Morgan Creek can sort of untangle from some of the issues that they’ve got in terms of continuing the franchise, we’re ready to go,” Estevez said. “So it’s just a question of when. Of course, I’m not getting any younger, so I think we’ll drop the ‘young’ from the title, which we’ve done. But I think that Westerns being revived certainly plays to our benefit.“

The first Young Guns movie follows a group of young gunmen, led by Billy the Kid, who become deputies to avenge the murder of the rancher who became their benefactor. Emilio Estevez played Billy the Kid, with Lou Diamond Phillips as Jose Chavez y Chavez, Kiefer Sutherland as Josiah Gordon “Doc” Scurlock, Charlie Sheen as Richard “Dick” Brewer, Dermot Mulroney as “Dirty” Steve Stephens, and Casey Siemaszko as Charlie Bowdre.