Director Sergio Leone is the king of Spaghetti Westerns, having made several masterpieces in the genre pretty good for a man who only directed seven films. It was his Westerns with Clint Eastwood that brought him international acclaim, with each film in his Dollars Trilogy earning more money and praise than the last. By the time The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was in theaters, Leone was an enviable hitmaker. Paramount Pictures would reach out to him from the United States, offering him bigger opportunities than he could do in Italy. He agreed, and this is how Once Upon a Time in the West began its trajectory.