I was doing a television series when [Leone's people] called my agency. At first, I said, "I don't think so." Then when I read the material, I realised that it was [a retelling of] Yohimbo (1961). Some years earlier, when I was in LA, a theater there ran a lot of foreign films. I had gone one night and watched Yohimbo; hadn't known anything about it, though I did like the director, Kurosawa, so I thought it couldn't be that bad. And it was really good. I said to a buddy of mine, "This is amazing, this thing would have been a great Western." And that was the end of the conversation. Then some years later, all of a sudden, here I am getting asked to make a Western out of Yohimbo. A lot of irony going on.
— Clint Eastwood (Interview, 2025)
Synopsis: The Man With No Name enters the Mexican village of San Miguel in the midst of a power struggle among the three Rojo brothers and sheriff John Baxter. When a regiment of Mexican soldiers bearing gold intended to pay for new weapons is waylaid by the Rojo brothers, the stranger inserts himself into the middle of the long-simmering battle, selling false information to both sides for his own benefit.