The 2016 western "In a Valley of Violence" didn't exactly set the box office on fire, but it marked some big milestones for Taissa Farmiga's career, per Box Office Mojo. Farmiga portrayed Mary-Anne, an innkeeper and young admirer of the mysterious Paul (Ethan Hawke). Farmiga got to team up with not only the Oscar-nominated Hawke but also Academy Award winner John Travolta. Behind the camera were Blumhouse's Jason Blum and writer/director Ti West, the latter of whom would go on to create the "X" horror franchise.
The film is part of Hawke's fruitful relationship with Blumhouse. After launching successful franchises with "Sinister" and "The Purge," Hawke convinced Blum to get into the business of westerns, producing this and the 2020 miniseries "The Good Lord Bird."
"After Ethan [Hawke] and I did 'Sinister' and 'The Purge,' he really, really wanted to do a Western ... It took about a year to find 'In a Valley of Violence,'" Blum said about "In a Valley of Violence" in a 2015 interview with Collider. The movie also allowed Farmiga to visit locations once trotted on by screen legends.
"It's the same damn desert! We shot in the same desert that Clint [Eastwood] shot in. We shot in the same one that John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart shot in. I mean, I stayed in hotels that those clowns stayed in. So, that's part of the fun," Hawke told App in 2016.
