“Yoohoo. I'll make you famous!”

Following up the popular 1988 hit, Young Guns, this sequel reunited Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, and Lou Diamond Phillips with the writing of John Fusco. Taking over for original director Christopher Cain, Geoff Murphy (The Quiet Earth, Never Say Die) continued the rock ‘n’ roll homage to the famous American outlaw, Billy the Kid. Although the first film ended with an epilogue concerning the Kid’s death, the sequel picked up with events following the exploits of the Regulators during the Lincoln County Wars. Heathers paramour Christian Slater, Alan Ruck (Ferris Buhler’s Cameron), and William Petersen (later of C.S.I. fame) replaced the departed cast from the first film

The story begins with Billy the Kid (Estevez) breaking his friends Doc (Sutherland) and Chavez (Phillips) out of prison. Together with the members of his new gang (Slater, Ruck, and Balthazar Getty as Tom O’Falliard), the desperadoes head for the border and safety. Furious and fed up with the Kid’s antics, the authorities hire an old friend of his, Pat Garrett, to hunt him down and kill him. Garrett accepts.

True to fashion, the gang’s adventures spiral out of control as members of his gang are killed around him, including his good friend Doc. The Kid himself is finally caught and taken to trial where he is sentenced to hang by his neck until he is “dead, dead, dead.” After his daring escape, Billy meets his remaining friends at Fort Sumter. Remorseful at the loss of his friends, Billy wakes one day to find himself finally in Garrett’s clutches. But what history records isn’t always what history really saw, so the film leaves the fate of the West’s most notorious outlaw a mystery.

The film’s liberties with historical accuracy didn’t prevent audiences from spending a respectable $44 million to go see it, making it the tenth highest grossing Western since 1980. With a soundtrack by Jon Bon Jovi that featured the Oscar-winning single “Blaze of Glory,” Young Guns II became a cult classic on par with the original.