Starring Kevin Costner in the title role, it features an ensemble supporting cast that includes Gene Hackman, Mark Harmon, Michael Madsen, Bill Pullman, Dennis Quaid, Isabella Rossellini, Tom Sizemore, JoBeth Williams, Joanna Going, Mare Winningham and Jim Caviezel in one of his earliest roles.

Unlike Tombstone, it was a box office failure[5] and received mixed reviews, with criticism for its three-hour runtime, although its production values were praised.

[6] During the American Civil War, teenaged Wyatt Earp lives on his family's farm in Pella, Iowa, while his older brothers Virgil and James serve with the Union Army.

Years pass, and Wyatt becomes a deputy marshal in Wichita, Kansas, building a reputation as a man unafraid to enforce the law.

Pursuing outlaw Dave Rudabaugh, Wyatt is introduced to gunman and gambler Doc Holliday in Fort Griffin, Texas, and the two become friends.

Despite his brothers' wives' and Mattie's protests, Wyatt moves the family to Tombstone, Arizona and immediately finds himself at odds with the outlaw Cowboy gang.

He becomes romantically involved with Josie Marcus, angering her boyfriend Sheriff Behan and stressing his relationship with Mattie, and becomes the subject of rumor about town.

Costner proceeded to use his then-considerable clout to convince most of the major studios to refuse to distribute the competing film, which affected casting on the rival project.

The site's consensus states: "Easy to admire yet difficult to love, Wyatt Earp buries eye-catching direction and an impressive cast in an undisciplined and overlong story.

[12] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2 out of 4 stars, saying "Wyatt Earp plays as if they took Tombstone and pumped it full of hot air.

It's a rambling, unfocused biography of Wyatt Earp (Kevin Costner), starting when he's a kid and following his development from an awkward would-be lawyer into a slick gunslinger.

"[13] Todd McCarthy of Variety praised the cast and production values, but remarked, "If you're going to ask an audience to sit through a three-hour, nine-minute rendition of an oft-told story, it would help to have a strong point of view on your material and an urgent reason to relate it.

'Wyatt Earp' labors to turn this mythic figure into a complex man; instead it makes him a cardboard cutout and his story a creepingly slow one.