The Big Picture: The Lone Ranger: What Happened?

MovieBob

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The Lone Ranger: What Happened?

MovieBob takes a long look at what exactly caused The Lone Ranger's failure.

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The Great JT

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Good analysis, but this part stuck with me the most:

"...Toy Story [2]...is almost 20 years old."

That makes me feel incredibly old.
 

Vault Citizen

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I could have sworn Toy Story 2 was only thirteen years old, I was already around 10 when I saw it *checks* yeah it was released November 99 so "almost twenty has old" is overstating it a bit.
 

synobal

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Honestly I was fully expecting this weeks Big Picture to be a Pacific Rim Job...I'm pleased to see it isn't though. I hope this means the Pacific Rim Honeymoon phase is over.
 

pottyaboutpotter1

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Say Bob. The Lone Ranger is Summer 2013's biggest flop. But didn't The Lone Ranger open at No.2 in the Box Office and has made over $100 million? And then there's that Robot movie which opened at No.3 and has yet to make $100 million. I'm not saying anything Bob. Just making an observation.
 

MB202

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Oh HO, so THAT'S where the look came from! Here I thought Johnny Depp was actually being respectful or some shit. You know, it's ironic really, Johnny Depp doing what he wanted, even though Disney hated what he was doing at the time, worked for the Pirates of the Carribean movies, and now, the reverse seems to have happened. I actually really like Johnny Depp as an actor... But he's starred in a lot of lame-ass moves...
 

mrblakemiller

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pottyaboutpotter1 said:
Say Bob. The Lone Ranger is Summer 2013's biggest flop. But didn't The Lone Ranger open at No.2 in the Box Office and has made over $100 million? And then there's that Robot movie which opened at No.3 and has yet to make $100 million. I'm not saying anything Bob. Just making an observation.
Oh, come on. Bob put Amazing Spider-Man in his example of movies that suck. Yeah, it did suck, but remember how Bob was completely sure it would a YEAR before it came out? He has selective vision; it's his most annoying feature. That, and buying into the idea that it's okay for Johnny Depp to play a pirate from hundreds of years ago but you have to be the same race as the character you're adapting. Unless you're not white.

Lot of good points otherwise.
 

pottyaboutpotter1

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I actually liked this movie. A lot. So. Yeah. Maybe I'm just easy to please or maybe I can just appreciate a movie for what it is more than what it could have been.
 

Falseprophet

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pottyaboutpotter1 said:
Say Bob. The Lone Ranger is Summer 2013's biggest flop. But didn't The Lone Ranger open at No.2 in the Box Office and has made over $100 million? And then there's that Robot movie which opened at No.3 and has yet to make $100 million. I'm not saying anything Bob. Just making an observation.
You're comparing the established brand with the planet's most bankable star that has barely made half its money back in 2 weeks to the original property with a lesser-known cast that's almost made half its money back in one weekend?
 

JimB

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Westerns are cool.

Westerns are America's legends, or at least the legends of the America that we have become. The gunslinger is America's knight in shining armor, our samurai, our cultural exemplar of a hero. The Western is a story about a hard man living in a hard time, a man who doesn't want to be a killer but must in order to battle the killers threatening those he loves. The Western is a story about a man who, after the entire movie has been spent piling pressure on him, becomes willing to take damnation onto himself in order to protect those who can't bear that burden not because he's broken and has become a beast but because he has made a choice as a man to embrace what of the beast he can use as a man. The Western is set in a nearly fantastical world we barely recognize where water is scarce and where enemy armies are camped out in the darkness just beyond our sight. The Western is a magical experience when done right, and if one is in a theater I will always go see it.

I did not go to see the Lone Ranger, and I never will, because I have no reason to believe it is a Western. I have seen nothing to suggest it has any understanding of what makes a Western great, and from what I've heard, no one else has seen that either.

This is not intended to rebut anything Mr. Chipman said. I'm sure his analysis is spot-on, and even if it isn't, I haven't seen the movie myself so I don't get to call him a liar. I'm only saying the Lone Ranger did not really want to be a Western, and that is a source of great sadness for me.
 

franksands

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Vault Citizen said:
I could have sworn Toy Story 2 was only thirteen years old, I was already around 10 when I saw it *checks* yeah it was released November 99 so "almost twenty has old" is overstating it a bit.
I think he's talking about Toy Story 1, which was launched in 1995, 18 years ago.
 

Mr. Q

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I think the whole Lone Ranger mess can be summed up in one line from Bruce Campbell's If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor...

Revelation #48: "No" is the most powerful word in the Hollywood dictionary.
That is what someone should have told Johnny Depp and Gore Verbinski from the start - NO! As in "No, Gore! We're not pumping so much money into a franchise where its target audience is so old, they can remember a time when dirt was fresh!" or "No, Johnny! You're not going to play the role of Tonto! I don't give a damn if you are part Indian!" But Disney, believing in the hype the two made with the Pirates franchise, decided to give them so much rope it could hang every employee currently working for the whole company.

I really wish Lone Ranger had been placed in more capable hands. It could have worked as a cable TV series instead of a summer blockbuster. Instead, we've got another turd that will be desperately trying to earn its money back on DVD/Blu-Ray (highly doubtful) and another reason that Johnny Depp needs to cancel all his future movie plans and take an extended vacation from Hollywood to rethink his career choices before he becomes the same joke Marlon Brando became at the end of his career. He needs a massive 180 right now and having him reprise his roles in Pirates or Alice in Wonderland is not going to help.
 

Littaly

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Johnny Depp's supporting character becoming the main character of the story is my main reason for not being too thrilled about any of the Pirates sequels.

Also, reading the title of the movie I was kind of hoping for an insight on The Lone Ranger's messy and shaky pre-production phase, but it turned out to be mainly a re-iterating of the review, which was kind of a disappointment :(
 

Hutzpah Chicken

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They should have structured the movie around Victor.

Anyways, why is it not okay for Johnny Depp to play a fictional native American when most Indians in westerns were played by Jewish men? Movies are movies and actors make money by doing the job.
 

Lightknight

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The Great JT said:
Good analysis, but this part stuck with me the most:

"...Toy Story [2]...is almost 20 years old."

That makes me feel incredibly old.
That got me too. Darn.

But yeah, great points. I wonder though, is there a viable AAA market for westerns? What would it have to look like now? It seems like the vast majority of movies as a media have been spent mining and exploiting that era for all it's worth and people have started to grow tired of it. I love westerns. The Good, the Bad, the Ugly. Fistful of Dollars. Gunsmoke. The Rifleman. etc. I am happy they exist. But is there a AAA market for new or remade versions of it today?
 

TAdamson

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pottyaboutpotter1 said:
Say Bob. The Lone Ranger is Summer 2013's biggest flop. But didn't The Lone Ranger open at No.2 in the Box Office and has made over $100 million? And then there's that Robot movie which opened at No.3 and has yet to make $100 million. I'm not saying anything Bob. Just making an observation.
Cost of 'The Lone Ranger' - $330million

Estimated final takings - ~$180million

Estimated losses of 'The Lone Ranger - $150million



Cost of 'Pacific Rim - $190million

Projected takings - >>$200million
 

Merklyn236

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I really wish an open postmortem of this production would be done by someone with all kinds of crazy levels of access (ala The Sweatbox) because as MovieBob alluded to the problems got so bad they called a halt to work things out before continuing. Some of which were public, like the main focus of the plot being rewritten (or maybe not so much, based on what I've heard about the actual plot of the movie), many more I'm sure were not.

While neither Johnny Depp or Gore Verbinski are likely to be unemployed out of this disaster, wonder if both of them will see their ability to control projects reduced as a result of this mess.