Last week, we showed you Cowboys & Aliens director Jon Favreau’s interviews with the films’s producers Steven Spielberg, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard for a real behind-the-scenes feel of how a production of this caliber is put together.

A new featurette has been released with interviews of the cast and crew intermingled with shots of the film addressing the mashup of genres in Cowboys & Aliens. Just how does this film work being both a sci-fi film and a western? Harrison Ford points out that this film takes the “humanity of a western and folds into it a sense of contemporary interests.” Watch the featurette below to find out:

Cowboys & Aliens Featurette: The Mashup of Genres

Here are two sneak peek clips from the film:

Cowboys and Aliens: Sneak Peek Clips

 [The Shakedown]

In the featurette, Alex Kurtzman (writer/producer) mentions that he’s “never seen a genre mashup like this” and I just want to clear my throat and cough out Firefly here for a moment. But, if Cowboys & Aliens introduces more people onto this genre mashup of sci-fi and westerns and to Captain Mal and the beloved crew of Firefly, then I’m a happy Whedonite.

Synopsis:

1873. Arizona Territory. A stranger (Daniel Craig) with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don’t welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). It’s a town that lives in fear.

But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky.  Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known.

Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation.  As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he’s been, he realizes he holds a secret that could give the town a fighting chance against the alien force.  With the help of the elusive traveler Ella (Olivia Wilde), he pulls together a posse comprised of former opponents—townsfolk, Dolarhyde and his boys, outlaws and Apache warriors—all in danger of annihilation. United against a common enemy, they will prepare for an epic showdown for survival.

Cowboys & Aliens, directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Iron Man 2) and starring Daniel Craig (Quantum of Solace), Harrison Ford (Extraordinary Measures), Sam Rockwell (Iron Man 2), Olivia Wilde (TRON: Legacy), Paul Dano (Knight and Day), Keith Carradine (Dollhouse),Clancy Brown (A Nightmare on Elm Street) and Adam Beach (The Stranger) is slated to hit theaters on July 29th, 2011.