- Yes.
- No.
- n/a
The early box office returns are in and it does not look good for The Lone Ranger and Disney.
However, Warner Brothers knew ahead of time that **Jack the Giant Slayer **was going to be a dud and cut its losses by dumping the movie in the nearly-dead box office month of March. Disney, on the other hand, was planning this as a major franchise-starter and released the film on Fourth of July weekend which is prime territory for summer blockbusters. This movie is shaping up to be not just a run-of-the-mill bomb but the representation for “Everything That’s Wrong With Hollywood.”
The big studios need to, for the most part, stop making $200+ million blockbusters. Just too much money and too much risk.
And I think that’s especially true with a movie like this. Why on God’s Green Earth would you need to spend more than say, $100 million on such a film? Yeah, I know you’re paying Depp $20-25m up front, but seriously.
Weird. When my strongly negative review ran I was assured by a couple people that I’d have liked it if I just turned off my brain and took it as the mindless entertainment it was supposed to be (which is what I’m told every time I don’t like some big summer movie; a year ago I was being called an idiot for not liking John Carter).
I’m still struggling to think of anything about it that someone might have enjoyed, but I’m glad people apparently are.
That’s what I find so disappointing, as a fan of the property. Maybe if the makers of this had taken a different approach, the critics would instead be saying that TLR is a representation of how GOOD adventure movies can be and breathes new life into old tropes the way Raiders of the Lost Ark did.
Oh, well, I’ll be seeing this Friday and can judge for myself whether the critics have a point or not.
Heck, look at DJANGO UNCHAINED: you’ve got $100 million dollars to spend, and so you get quick-draw gunslingers riding around on horseback sure as you get enough fistfights and explosions to justify keeping dozens of stuntmen on the payroll – and in no time flat, you’ve more than quadrupled your budget; by contrast, LONE RANGER could somehow manage to pull in more at the box office and yet still fail to even double its enormous budget.
It will probably recoup most of the deficit in the foreign markets.
Absolutely. A system where a studio’s hopes are staked on a handful of tentpole blockbusters that cost $350 million each (between production and marketing) and, thanks to Hollywood accounting, need to make a billion dollars worldwide to turn a profit is not a sustainable business model. Between cable, Netflix, iTunes, and so on, the entertainment business is so fractured that audiences aren’t going to be returning to movies in droves, and inflated IMAX and 3D ticket prices aren’t going to be enough to close the gap for much longer. There’s going to be a summer where half or three-quarters of these movies flop, and then what?
Studio need to start scaling back on bloated tentpole budgets and looking at mid-budget movies that can attract quality directors, writers, and actors but still easily turn a profit. Examples from last year: Lincoln, Argo, Flight, and Looper. Lower grosses, yes, but lower risk as well, and a lower threshold for success.
Historically, Westerns do not do well overseas. Even Johnny Depp’s huge following probably won’t be enough to overcome the genre.
You realize that “cable, Netflix, iTunes, and so on” aren’t competing with movies for your entertainment dollar and are additional revenue streams right? Movies don’t need to be profitable during their theatrical run to turn an overall profit anymore. Trust me, every “flop” from the last dozen years has ended up making money when you factor in all the places a movie can make money.
I think it’s also important that it was established at this point that Tonto is an unreliable narrator. That’s the purpose of framing the movie as a story being told by Tonto in 1933, and at one point an object he is given in 1933 is used by him in the main story to highlight this.
Whenever the back story is presented, that is parts of the story which weren’t personally witnessed by Tonto, there’s nothing magical or fantastic about the action. Those scenes could take place in run of the mill western.
The magic horse, the trick shots, and all the other magical and fantastic elements of the story were all first person narrative by Tonto. I think this distinction was made quite intentionally by the writers.
Saw it last night (in a double feature with World War Z, which I liked better). It’s a big dumb action movie, not very well written, with lots of explosions and credulity-straining action sequences and eccentricity for the sake of eccentricity. If you like that sort of thing, you might enjoy this movie, or at least some of its scenes. It’s not at all faithful to the source material, so if you’re considering seeing it because of your love for the original TV or radio series, or for traditional Westerns, for the love of God stay away.
Followup: So, after seeing the movie, I happened to see the trailer for the movie. And, well, the trailer pretty much was the movie, compressed into five minutes.
In fact, a simple economic line of thinking can tell you that this is not the case. If every movie made a profit, there would be more movies.
Want a do over on this??? 
Have you seen some of the crap that is put out ‘direct to dvd’ or for the syfy channel ?
there are more movies being made - including some incredibly inept ‘knock offs’ that try to spoon off of a ‘major release’.
For the OP - we saw it - we enjoyed it - I personally could have done with less of the ‘death’ that is in the film - but overall a serviceable and enjoyable afternoon.
IMHO, it was not a ‘skinned Pirates movie’ in any way shape or form - Depp was not just “captain jack” as an indian.
And therefore?
You make it sound (to me) vaguely Terry Gilliam’s Adventures of Baron Munchausen…esque.
I wonder if a movie like this would have benefited from a shorter running time?
I know speaking for myself that if I’m asked to sit and watch a movie for 2-1/2 hours the thing better have a compelling story to tell that will keep me watching. If it’s not a critical hit I’m probably not going to waste my time on it.
On the other hand, if a movie is reported as having great visuals, great action sequences, etc. but a sub-par story to go along with it, I’m much more apt to take a chance on it if it clocks in at under 2 hours.
I’m wondering if they could have got more people in the theatre with the thinking “Yeah, well, I heard it’s not that great but I like Johnny Depp and action is always fun in a big budget so I guess I can invest 110 minutes”, rather than “2 and a half hours! That’s asking too much.”
Saw it last night and enjoyed it. Felt like Red Dead Redemption: The Movie at times. Had no idea it was garnering so many bad reviews and hadn’t seen this thread earlier.
Of the three sources I’ve heard, two of them have said that the movie was fairly good.