The Lone Ranger’s box-office woes could lead to Disney rethinking its relationship with producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
While Bruckheimer has had the golden touch for the studio with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and the National Treasure films, his other big budget gambles for Disney haven’t paid off.
That includes Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, both of which were high profile duds for the studio. Bruckheimer, who has produced hits for decades on both TV and at the movies, may not longer have the golden touch — or at least the perception that he no longer does.
And that means Disney could look to pay him less for the upcoming fifth Pirates installment and may sever ties with him for future projects.
“Film directors are very headstrong, and it’s hard,” says director Michael Bay, who made two Bad Boys movies and Pearl Harbor with Bruckheimer. “Trust me, as a producer, there are things [you] just can’t control. A director will take it and you’ve kind of got to let ‘em go. It’s their movie.”
ne of Bruckheimer’s reps concurs.
“I don’t know that Jerry Bruckheimer ever promised, per se, to ‘control’ Gore Verbinski,” says David O’Connor of CAA. “I don’t know how anybody could promise to control a movie. … Part of the whole visual pitch [of Lone Ranger] was the scope and vistas and incredible beauty of the West. There’s a lot — when you’re using real locations like that — that is out of control.”
Bruckheimer and Verbinski declined to comment, as did Disney.
A number of top industry executives who praised Bruckheimer to The Hollywood Reporter were responding in part to recent slams elsewhere, such as one in the New York Times on July 7, which read: “Mr. Bruckheimer’s track record of late has been dismal, with duds including Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” The former film grossed $335 million worldwide, while the latter pulled in $215 million. Given their sizable budgets, both films were disappointments.
In an important way, the outsized failure of Lone Ranger is having minimal impact as Wall Street analysts have shrugged off the loss despite predictions that a write-off of up to $190 million is coming. Nonetheless, Disney executives are deeply unhappy with the loss and the embarrassment. Sources say the studio battled with Verbinski over length and content and the director lost his final-cut privileges early on due to budget overages. But in practical terms, Disney was not in a position to take control of the picture, potentially alienating a star as important as Depp.
Disney film studio chief Alan Horn, who joined the studio when the film was already underway, is known for his distaste for graphic violence and potentially offensive language — an inclination perfectly suited to Disney’s culture. Anticipating that the studio would seek cuts, an insider says Verbinski put some dark and violent material in the film — such as a scene depicting a character eating a human heart — fully expecting to cut them back to placate executives. Though the heart-devouring scene was trimmed, Disney pushed further.
The studio had contractual power to effect some changes through language in the filmmaker’s contract giving the studio the right to eliminate material inconsistent with the company’s image. As the film moved closer to release, however, Verbinski is said to have threatened to walk off the project if additional changes were made.