Development and casting
On April 18, 2012, Deadline reported that Sidney Kimmel Entertainment (SKE) had acquired the heist film Comancheria, written by Taylor Sheridan, which SKE would finance and produce with Peter Berg of Film 44.[4] It is the second installment of Sheridan's trilogy of "the modern-day American frontier".[5] At Cinemacon 2016 in Las Vegas, a standee was presented for the film, revealing that the title had been changed to Hell or High Water.[6] Berg was potentially attached to direct the film. Endgame Entertainment and Focus Features were also among the studios bidding for the project against SKE.[4] The script won the best Black List script in 2012.[7] On April 2, 2015, Jeff Bridges was announced to be set to star, while Chris Pine and Ben Foster were also in talks to join, and David Mackenzie was set to direct the film.[8] On May 4, 2015, Pine and Foster were confirmed to play brothers in the film, who commit bank robberies to save their family's farm in West Texas, while Bridges would play a Texas Ranger set to catch the brothers.[9] CBS Films acquired the US rights to the film, which was produced by Sidney Kimmel of Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, Peter Berg of Film 44, Carla Hacken of SKE, and Julie Yorn of LBI, with Gigi Pritzker, Bill Lischak, Michael Nathanson, Rachel Shane, John Penotti, Bruce Toll and Braden Aftergood as executive producers.[10][9] Sidney Kimmel Entertainment developed the project with Film 44, and OddLot Entertainment co-produced and co-finance the film along with SKE.[11]
Filming
Scenes were shot in Estancia (Torrence County) Alamogordo Valley, Eastern New Mexico.Although the film's plot takes place in West Texas and Oklahoma, filming took place in eastern New Mexico. Principal photography on the film began on May 26, 2015, in Clovis, New Mexico.[12][10] Filming also took place in other New Mexico communities such as Portales and Tucumcari.[13][14][15] Some rural scenes were filmed in the vast and sparsely populated ranch country of Quay and Guadalupe Counties of New Mexico, including scenic shots of Alamogordo Valley south of Luciano Mesa. Filming wrapped on July 8, 2015.[16]
