Marlon Brando (impressed by
White of the Eye (1987), in which Guest cast and played the part of Caryanne) 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, and
Robert Duvall and
Morgan Freeman as CIA operatives. Producer
Elliott Kastner paid Brando $3 million up front, but after 18 months of work, while on pre-production 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 worked on
Wild Side (1995) together.