The Lone Ranger Movie By Disney

Disney came very close to pulling the plug early on

 

I finally saw this with my family. It was hit and miss, but I'm glad I saw it on the big screen. I guess I'd give it a "B-" at best.

But regardless of how well you liked or disliked the movie, it does seem like it exposes problems with the basic monetary framework of some Hollywood productions. The worldwide box office for it is almost $200 million, which means it's actually one of the biggest grossing Westerns ever made. And yet it's lost c. $190 million for Disney. The biggest problem seems to be not that it didn't make what you'd expect an "epic" Western to make in the 21st century, the problem is that it cost more than twice as much as it should have.

Why? Well, for starters, when the studio is taking losses of $190 million, we can wonder if some of the people who cashed in big should have. We can imagine Depp got something like $20 million, Verbinsky maybe $10 million, Bruckheimer maybe another $10 million, assorted other people another $10 million, and suddenly you're looking at $50 million dollars just for a lot of signatures on some paper. And these are the people whining about how the critics have hurt them. Oh brother. Bad notices haven't stopped the Transformer movies from getting the big bucks.

A whole Western movie can be made for $50 million. The recent True Grit movie had a production budget of c.$38 million and made $251 million worldwide.

The Lone Ranger may have spent another $50 million on real trains (couldn't they have rented some?), and maybe another $50 million on CGI and sets. Still difficult to see how they spent $225m on a Western.

I liked Rango, but it was only a modest hit, kind of a break-even proposition. When Disney almost shut down the production they trimmed the budget only slightly from the original $250 million. Seems like maybe they should have said: What kind of movie can you make for $80 million?

But, of course, that wouldn't be a "branded tentpole," which is all that the Disney execs care about.

Making a good movie, maybe even a classic, as Walt tried to do? Forgetaboutit.

 

That's a good question. I wouldn't doubt that eventually, somebody will get hold of the budget on Lone Ranger and go down each line item and explain where the $250,000,000 went. My guess is that the above-the-line costs (writer, director, main actors, producers) probably got very close to $75 million alone. And yet: it's known that when the budget was cut, Verbinski, Bruckheimer, Depp, and Hammer all cut their fees by 20%. It's a good question what it cost to build two sets of 6-mile railroad tracks, complete with some vintage locomotives and cars.

I don't think the budget alone made the movie bad. I think even a $5000 movie made with this script would be bad.

 

Been enjoying the soundtrack CD to this film quite a bit.

If you're someone who enjoyed the film, you might want to seek out the CD for yourself.

 

I found this to be not the bomb people are saying it is, forgetting Box office and budget ,this is pretty entertaining and I found Depp funny, the look of the film seem to work for me ,a mixed of Film and Video
I didn't care for the obvious "Once Upon a Time in the West " shots and sound effects I wonder if this make anything on video

 

I thought Lone Ranger was even worse on video than it was in the theater. At least at home, you can fast-forward through the slow parts. Not a good-looking film, in my opinion.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer confesses he was surprised that the movie was a bomb, and was also surprised that the Pirates movies were such immense hits in this recent interview:

http://www.deadline.com/2013/12/jer...ve-beverly-hills-cop-lone-ranger/#more-651185

What's intriguing is that Mr. Bruckheimer has just signed a multi-billion-dollar deal with Paramount to continue making movies (including sequels to Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cops). Interesting interview.

 

I brought the blu ray the other week! I still enjoy it ! good movie !

 

this is one of the first Depp movies that I actually enjoyed his performance very much. I pretty much lost interest after Pirates...

 

it pretty much a had it all...very entertaining.

 

..and the Teflon man laughs all the way to the bank. Make a film with Eddie Murphy, Yep, that's the ticket.
6 to 8 bucks to see a movie???

 

You railed on the film when it first came out and now you're doing it again.

If you hated the movie so much in the first place, why did you watch it again on home video?

 

I wanted to see the making of documentaries! I love those. It's sad to watch this one, because it's clear that Bruckheimer, Johnny Depp, and the director were all certain they were making a classic Western that would make huge money.

Don't forget, I did like the first 20 minutes of the movie. Just not what followed.

BTW, I didn't notice until now that you're from the Shinagawa-ku prefecture. That's a very nice part of Toyko -- I was there once for a tour of the Sony building on Kitashanagawa, the big white building. Dunno if it's still there. Had a great time and learned a lot about how and why Sony does some of the things they do (at least in the 1980s).

 

If you like "making of" documentaries, the "Behind the Mask" coffee table tome is a very good one - with lots of production artwork and great photography.

Quite honestly, I think Bruckheimer, Depp, and Verbinski are right. It *is* a fine film. Critics in the US had it in for the movie before it was released due to its convoluted history.

I saw the film three times last summer - twice in IMAX. It didn't drag at all - even the third time.

I'm now looking forward to the blu-ray, which gets released in Japan next month.

Unlike most films these days which rely solely on green screens and computer-generated special effects (which look patently fake to me), the real sets, real props, and real stunts of TLR set it apart from stuff like "Iron Man", "The Avengers", or any other CG-laden flick.

Well, anyway, I liked "The Lone Ranger", no matter what anyone else has to say about it.

As for that Sony building, it's on the other side of the ward. I've been to that area a couple of times, but it's pretty far away from where I live. (That area is pretty close to the waterfront, so I imagine you can see Shinagawa's canals from the building's upper floors.)

 

Estimates are that the effects budget for Lone Ranger were about $60 million. Tons and tons and tons of green screen effects, particularly when the title character rode his horse on top of the train, and when the Ranger and Tonto jumped off the train, off a trestle, and into the river. Massive amounts of visual effects in the film, hundreds and hundreds of shots, some of which looked very phony to me. Here's an entire podcast devoted to those effects:

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/vfx-adventures-the-lone-ranger/

 

Most of the last 15 minutes, or so, were filmed across the street from me in the vacant parking lot of Santa Anita Race Track. They had a massive 90 degree blue screen.The shot with the horse riding through the rail car was shot using that set. I also saw Depp hung upside down on a carousel like trapeze. Took them most of one morning dragging this thing around for a shot that lasted maybe 10 seconds. The encampment was there most of the summer. The city of Arcadia even got a thank you in the credits. Cops were kept busy booting pauperize away as they had set up on city owned land.

 

The horse effect was pretty bad, I'll give you that. It's pretty obvious when they went from real horse to the transition CG of him avoiding the tunnel's opening.

But, the shots of Hammer and Depp running atop the moving train were real, as was William Fichtner (Butch Cavendish) jumping from the train to the horse running along side.

My point was that just about every effects shot in any modern superhero film is CG. When I had to sit through the trailer to some giant robot film that opened this past summer (something about aliens attacking under water), it looked like somebody playing a video game - and just about as realistic.

I liked how the producers of TLR got real trains made, and how most of the film was "real".

 

I thought the film was basically a piece of over-budgeted garbage. It started out interesting but just kept getting more and more ridiculous and by the time I got to the "riding a horse on top of a train" I laughed, turned it off and watched something else.

 

Finally watched "The Lone Ranger". Not the crap festival I thought judging by the reviews; just a mediocre flick, with some entertaining moments.
Halfway I was so bored that I was ready to stop (something I usually don't do) but after Tom Wilkinson launches the gold watch on the red table of the board of directors, things get interesting. And since I'm a big fan of well coreographed and edited action sequences, I have to say I enjoyed very much the "battle on the trains" scene. Of course it's a load of nonsense but..hey; it's a movie!
What I find a bit annoying is that "The lone Ranger" makes extensive use of the "William Tell" overture yet the credits state "Music by Hans Zimmer" and Gioacchino Rossini doesn't get a credit. I am aware that the overture was used back in the day as a soundtrack for the old series and probably some know about it, but it would have been fair just to state who wrote what.

 

Remember folks, stunt shots that show the face of the actor to make you think "Wow he did that??!!" are probably a stuntman with the actors face CGI'd over the top. Happens a lot.

 

Still waiting to get on Blu-Ray. Target had it on sale right before Xmas and it was sold out.

Not willing to pay full price at the moment....

 

I worked on those!

 

The behind-the-scenes docs, or the feature?

 

The behind-the-scenes docs. Their expectations (and egos) may have been inflated, but they are great guys to work with.

 

I don't doubt it. I saw the interview with Gore Verbinski where he talked about how bad the sandstorms came up and blew dust in everybody's eyes and so on, just an agonizing shoot. I would think on a budget this huge, they had every amenity possible, tons of people, and never had to shoot more than a page and a half a day, so that's a very leisurely schedule from that point of view, so I wouldn't doubt that it was a very comfortable set. I was amazed at the extreme VFX going on in the show:



I think there's a ton of visual effects going on that nobody knew were visual effects when they were watching the film. No question, the effects broke a lot of new ground. If only the movie hadn't been so stupid, it might have worked.

 

It's the lone ranger! We loved it...and I'm NOT a huge fan of Johnny, but he was great in this...it's too bad you are so jaded being in the business and all...it must be tough just to enjoy a movie without ripping it to shreds.