In 1988
Marlon Brando (impressed by
L'oeil du tueur (1987), which Guest cast and played the part of Caryanne in) called director
Donald Cammell and invited him to write and direct "Jericho", an ultra-violent action thriller. Brando would play Billy Harrington, a former CIA assassin blackmailed by the CIA into carrying out one last mission. Guest put together a cast including the then-unknown
Julia Roberts as Brando's daughter,
Benjamin Bratt as her love interest,
Robert Duvall and
Morgan Freeman as CIA operatives. Producer
Elliott Kastner paid Brando $3 million up front, but after eighteen months of work, while on preproduction in Mexico and with shooting only days away, Brando dropped out, claiming he couldn't get insurance. Kastner went bankrupt, and Cammell and Guest eventually went on to work on
Wild Side (1995) together.
