Leone wanted to make a Western because he thought there was a market for them in Europe that wasn't being satisfied by the films Hollywood was putting out. So he wrote a script, copying the plot of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's 1961 samurai film Yojimbo, without asking for the rights, and found locations in Spain to shoot.
But he also thought that having an American actor in the lead role might make his movie a hit . . .
Where do they get the people to write this stuff. Here we have yet again the canard that Leone was the first to make an Italian western. And then there is the suggestion that casting an American in an Italian production was a Leone innovation and new for this film, as if the sword-and-sandals pictures had never been made. And then the person who wrote this even got paid for his/her disinformation. Sheesh!
