Part of the plot of Disney’s The Lone Ranger revolves around a silver mine.
Disney may be wishing they could find a lost silver mine to help make-up some of the losses the film is likely to experience based on its disappointing first weekend at the box-office.
With a reported price tag of $225 million, Ranger barely took in $50 million domestically in its five days of release. Many analysts predicted the film would make around $100 million over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, leading to a $100 million write-off for Disney. But with the dismal box-office showing this weekend, some predict that the loss could be close to $150 million.
Given its poor opening and stiff July competition, box office experts now calculate that Lone Ranger will reach only $125 million domestically, if that. Overseas, it may earn $150 million for a worldwide total of $275 million. In 2011, Disney was forced to take a $200 million write-down when the ill-fated John Carter — costing more than $250 million to produce — topped out at $282 million worldwide. (Disney should fare a bit better on Lone Ranger because it will do better domestically than John Carter‘s $73 million, and the studio receives a higher percentage of revenue from domestic theaters than it does from international theaters.)
“It’s very disappointing,” said Disney executive vp worldwide distribution Dave Hollis. “Everything was perfect on paper, so today was incredibly frustrating.”
Despite Depp’s international star status, Lone Ranger hasn’t fared well overseas, where Westerns are an especially challenged genre. The film grossed a tepid $24.3 million from 24 markets for a lackluster worldwide opening of $73.2 million, trounced by Universal’s Despicable Me 2. Lone Ranger took in $6.6 million in Russia, well behind the $16.5 million opening of Disney’s ill-fated 2012 tentpole John Carter, and only $3.2 million in Australia, on par with John Carter.
Depp’s big-budget films have done huge business overseas, even those that have underperformed domestically. The Tourist grossed just $67 million in North America in 2010 but took in $211 million internationally. Last May’s Dark Shadows sputtered with $79 million domestic but doubled that total ($166 million) overseas. Lone Ranger could break that winning streak and raise big questions about Depp’s star status.
Lone Ranger fared even worse in South Korea, opening to a dismal $1.6 million in a likely harbinger of how the movie will perform in the rest of Asia (as a way of comparison, World War Z recently grossed north of $6 million in its second weekend in South Korea).
Reuniting the same team behind the blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean franchise — Bruckheimer, one of the most successful producers in Hollywood history, Verbinski and Depp — Lone Ranger was intended to launch a new live-action franchise for Disney, even though Westerns are a tricky genre, particularly overseas.
In the film, Depp applies his penchant for playing quirky characters to the role of Tonto, while Hammer plays the Lone Ranger, both characters made first made famous in the radio show.
Disney insiders aren’t trying to sugar coat their disappointment or gloss over the movie’s problems, including a lengthy running time of 149 minutes and withering reviews. It has a 24 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to 79 percent for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the first title in that series.
Sources say Lone Ranger could strain relations between Disney and Bruckheimer, who are supposed to reteam on Pirates of the Caribbean 5, set for release on July 7, 2015. Outside of the Pirates films — which have racked up $3.7 billion in global ticket sales — and the successful National Treasurefranchise, several of Bruckheimer’s Disney films have underperformed at the box office, including The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and G-Force.
Needless to say, any ideas of the film becoming a franchise are probably off the table.
Alverant says
It’s their own fault for using Depp. They could have found an actual First Nations actor for less and use the money to hire better writers. First Tonto is a spiritualist, then we find out he’s just crazy. I guess since Tonto is supposed to be Spanish for “stupid” it fits, but they could have done better. Much better.
John from Lakeland says
I’ll eventually go see it since my wife MUST SEE everything with Depp in nit now that Tom Cruise is getting old. As an old school, Clayton Moore fan, I am dreading this movie. I know they did nothing but a disservice to it. I wish Disney had spent the money on Story and not names. There was a reason Disney didn’t want to do this movie in the beginning. Perhaps they should have been a little firmer.
Summer Brooks says
I don’t think Depp was a bad choice, but maybe looking at these three “flops” together paints a different picture of the problem at Disney — lack of story development ideas.
They seem to be stuck in the past, in their own glory days when they ruled the box office by name alone. How did anyone think that Lone Ranger and John Carter of Mars would appeal to a large segment of viewers under the age of 35? How could they think it was common that viewers who weren’t yet born when Star Wars came out would understand the history that Star Wars owed to John Carter and Edgar Rice Burroughs?
Same with Dark Shadows… that was a favorite show for the mothers of their target age group, and because of it’s complete absence from reruns, there’s no exposure for that “name” to the younger group. And the original was a soap opera, for crying out loud. How many soap operas did they cancel off ABC over the past few years because they thought they weren’t drawing in newer and younger viewers, and then they bet money on a movie about a soap opera, hoping to draw in those same younger viewers? Seriously?
And the apparent lack of cohesive story and running incongruent gags was just a small sample of what was wrong with “Mars Needs Moms”, I wouldn’t know. The mere description of the story in the ads — Martians kidnap Earth mothers — was something I could easily see a lot of moms having no interest in taking their kids to, in addition to saying “Disney WTF?” out of earshot of those kids.
There’s a huge disconnect somewhere inside Disney in regards to story telling, but no one knows it yet.
John from Lakeland says
Well, there has been some mentions in hushed circles of Ms. Kennedy taking over in time now that they have acquired all of the Lucas Entertainment franchise. She did well running Lucas, she may well be the shot in the arm Disney needs to wake them up again.