"Apache" was followed by "Vera Cruz", another western, based on the Mexican Revolution. This was another top-budget Technicolor picture and one of the earliest films to use the widescreen format, using the SuperScope process. Hecht's production company traveled to Mexico and filmed entirely on location, including scenes at the famous Chapultepec Castle. Robert Aldrich and James R. Webb returned as director and writer with Roland Kibbee coming in to help with the script. It starred Lancaster and Gary Cooper with featured roles by Denise Darcel, Sara Montiel, Cesar Romero, George Macready, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson (again credited as Charles Buchinsky), Jack Elam and Jack Lambert. "Vera Cruz" became Norma Productions' top grosser and one of UA's best box office success, earning over $11 million and boosting Hecht and Lancaster to the top as Hollywood's most prominent independent producers, a position they would keep for five years. "Vera Cruz" was later considered as one of the potential TV shows that Hecht-Lancaster Productions was to produce and they hired a young western TV writer, Sam Peckinpah, to write a teleplay. But the pilot was never produced.