The Young Guns Regulators Ride Again 38 Years Later
Be still, your 1980s heartthrob and poster-wall crushes. It is truly a back-to-the-future moment in every sense of the phrase.
The 1988 Young Guns cast reunited at Fan Expo Dallas on September 12, bringing nearly the whole gang together 38 years after they first rode across movie screens. The result? A blockbuster-juggernaut group selfie loaded with enough Brat Pack-era wattage to stop an entire convention floor.
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The Regulators back in formation were Emilio Estevez as Billy the Kid, Charlie Sheen as Richard “Dick” Brewer, Kiefer Sutherland as Doc Scurlock, Lou Diamond Phillips as José Chávez y Chávez, Dermot Mulroney as Dirty Steve Stephens and Casey Siemaszko as Charley Bowdre. Terry O’Quinn, who played attorney Alex McSween, joined the reunion too.
Mulroney summed up the weekend exactly as this outlaw reunion deserved: “PALS since 1877.” He said the cast discovered they all carried different sides of the same memories and laughed through the weekend, adding that Sutherland called Young Guns the most fun he ever had making a movie. Thirty-eight years later, that chemistry apparently never left the saddle.
The 1988 Western turned the Lincoln County War into a stylish blast of youthful rebellion, with Estevez’s Billy leading a crew that looked less like dusty history and more like the coolest gang Hollywood could assemble. Made for a reported $11 million, the film rode to roughly $56 million worldwide and earned the 1990 sequel Young Guns II.
Phillips needed only two words for his own reunion post: “F’ing epic!” Correct. There is nostalgia, and then there is seeing Billy the Kid, Dick Brewer, Doc Scurlock, Chávez, Dirty Steve and Charley Bowdre standing shoulder to shoulder again like 1988 merely took a very long commercial break.
The timing also has fans watching the horizon. Estevez has discussed Young Guns 3: Dead or Alive, a proposed continuation centered on a new group of mostly Latino and Indigenous Regulators in Mexico on the eve of the Mexican Revolution. Phillips and Young Guns II star Christian Slater have been named among the planned returnees. Whether the project finally rides into production remains to be seen, but this reunion certainly knows how to make the idea feel alive again.
Young Guns (1988) Official 35th Anniversary Trailer
Revisit Billy the Kid and the Regulators in Lionsgate Movies’ official 35th-anniversary trailer for the 1988 Western.
Sources: Entertainment Weekly; People; Fan Expo Dallas; Dermot Mulroney; Lou Diamond Phillips; Lionsgate Movies.
