WTF Happened to The Lone Ranger?

Walt Disney Studios has had a pretty abysmal year at the international box office in 2023 between Ant-Man 3 The Little Mermaid Elemental Indiana Jones 5 and perhaps the most disappointing the Marvels the typically successful movie studio has lost an ungodly amount of money by producing overly expensive feature films that fail to resonate among the masses and earn back their financial investments if the studio isn't careful and this trend continues Disney could be looking at another record for the all-time biggest box office bomb on record and speaking of which if you had to guess what Disney's most notorious Financial flop of all time is what would your guess be well up until recently the correct response would have been John Carter the disastrous 2012 adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrow's a Princess of Mars however after tallying up the receipts in 2023 Disney's most infamous box office failure now belongs to The Lone Ranger directed by gor ver binsky and starring Johnny Depp and Army Hammer Of course losing hundreds of millions of dollars is one thing that the studio must account for but overcoming the reputational hit of one of the most problematic Productions in Hollywood history that's another monster altogether yet while much of the public Focus regarding the Lone Ranger has to do with the Epic commercial failure and scattering critical response many people Overlook how damned and doomed the making of the movie was between 2011 and 2012 between things like production delays stemming from the budget spiraling out of control and the outbreak of chickenpox to weather problems and dangerous wildfires to dep's near fatal horseback injury and the literal death of a crew member on set the tragedy of this film extends far beyond its economics so saddle the up kimosabi it's time to find out what the happened to The Lone Ranger [Music] before Disney became involved in the project it's worth noting that classic media had the rights to The Lone Ranger in 2002 Colombia pictures partnered with classic media to produce a new live-action movie adaptation of the iconic radio program and TV show at the time married producing Partners Douglas Wick and Lucy fiser were hired to Shepherd the project with the mask of Zoro providing a tone Al blueprint for the kind of rolicking action adventure film that the studio was aiming for the project was allotted a moderate 70 million budget with Colombia insisting that the character of tono be reimagined as a female love interest for John Reed AKA The Lone Ranger various writers were recruited to work on the script including everyone from David and Janet peoples to leetta caligus by early 2005 Jonathan mow was attached to direct The Lone Ranger after making Terminator 3 rise of the Machines alas Colombia put the project in turnaround in 2005 and the film lingered in development hell for the next 2 years in 2007 the Weinstein Company expressed interest in producing the picture but the deal dissolved when a company called entertainment rights swooped in and scooped the legal rights to the property entertainment rights immediately partnered with Hollywood power producer Jerry brookheimer who brought the project to Disney where brookheimer enjoyed massive success with Johnny Depp in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and by March 2008 brookheimer hired screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rosio to work on the script for The Lone Ranger in September screenwriter Justin ha was hired to rewrite the script also in September 2008 Disney announced that Johnny Depp would Star as Tonto and the decision was made to market the movie around his character rather than the titular hero Depp even received top billing over Army Hammer who was ultimately cast to play John Reed AKA The Lone Ranger this was the first time in the history of Lone Ranger movies that an actor playing Tonto received top billing for his physical appearance as Tonto Depp's makeup and costume were deliberately inspired by Kirby Satler 19th century painting I am Crow according to reports Depp insisted on Dawning the full Tonto wardrobe during the table read for the screenplay in Albuquerque New Mexico prompting the actor to be 2 hours late for the meeting and somehow nobody is shocked by that factoid one bit by May 2009 British filmmaker Mike Newell began negotiations with Disney to direct The Lone Ranger one year later brookheimer claimed that he was waiting to officially hire a director until after Newell finished making Prince of Persia the sands of time which Disney also was producing brookheimer also insisted on waiting to make the Lone Ranger until after Depp finished his commitments on P P of the Caribbean 4 although Depp was attached to play Tanto brookheimer told the press in 2010 quote they are going to cast the title role once they get a director in Disney greenlights we don't have a director yet in October 2010 gor ver binsky was officially slated to direct The Lone Ranger reuniting with Depp from their three previous Pirates of the Caribbean collaborations principal photography was scheduled to begin after Depp completed his work on Tim Burton's Dark Shadows in the interim Army Hammer was cast as The Lone Ranger then in August 2011 9 months before principal photography began the Lone Ranger suffered a major Financial setback Disney publicly announced that the production would be delayed due to the budget that was ballooning out of control at the time a reported $260 million price tag was given to the picture Disney CEO Bob Iger and chairman Rich Ross organized efforts to contain the budget and reduce the escalating cost of the movie which included verbinski brookheimer Depp and Hammer all agreeing to reduce their salaries by 20% in order to help pay for the production Disney was already concerned about the financial failure of Cowboys and Aliens and the skyrocketing cost of John Carter and Oz the Great and Powerful and they tried to get a handle on The Lone Ranger before it became too big to grasp in addition to the financial sacrifices that were made by the talent involved part of minimizing the cost of the movie involved discarding a supernatural element in the script written by Elliot and Rosio the original draft they wrote involved Mythic Native American lore dealing with coyotes werewolves silver bullets and the like once the budget was drastically reduced to roughly 215 million the Paranormal plot points were deleted from the script entirely after publicly addressing the film's pre-production woes Disney announced that The Lone Ranger was back on track in October 2011 the film was initially given a December 21 2012 release date that was pushed back to May 31st 2013 and eventually delayed again to Fourth of July weekend meanwhile Disney chairman Rich Ross was replaced by Alan horn in 2012 who immediately began tinkering with the movie and heavily edited the scene in which Butch Cavendish Gorly dines on Dan Reed's heart changing leadership Midway through the production may not have hurt but it's certainly didn't help this movie overcome its disastrous Fate bolstered by an estimated budget of 215 million bucks principal photography on The Lone Ranger officially commenced on March 8th 2012 and lasted until July unfortunately here is where the real trouble Begins the sprawling production schedule required filming in six states that capture the American West including Utah Colorado Arizona New Mexico Texas and California this massive logistical undertaking required the actors to undergo formal horseback riding lassoing and gun handling training one of the most infamous mishaps while making the movie involved Johnny Depp being thrown dragged and nearly trampled by his stunt horse Scout the instance occurred while filming a horse riding scene in the desert while Tonto was riding alongside John Reed as cameras were rolling Depp slid off the side of the horse and held on for dear life until he plummeted to the ground at full speed the horse clipped Depp a few times with its back legs leaving him with scratches and bruises on his chest and abdomen however in the video footage released of the accident right there are you oh my goodness Scout fortunately lunged over Depp's body in the nick of time preventing much further damage in the process and afterward Depp beamed to verbinski quote I'll tell you what the positive thing is my just didn't take it although Depp came away from the mishap fairly unharmed the film shoot would continue to suffer one major blow after another Hammer injured his elbow during a stunt that required him to jump on the horse when the horse leaped out of the way at the last second Hammer fell backwards onto the ground and damaged his right Bersa sack while filming on location in the spring and summer of 2012 the production was delayed due to intense rainstorms snowfall wildfires and 70 mph winds and not to mention dust storms and over 100° temperatures of course more delays meant more money spent with the budget swelling back up to 225 to 250 million as the production progressed and as if that wasn't bad enough several crew members fell ill after a chickenpox outbreak contaminated the set while making the movie which caused further costly schedule delay play sadly the biggest tragedy that occurred while making the Lone Ranger involved the death of a crew member Michael Andrew Bridger who worked as a water safety expert on the movie while preparing to film an underwater action set piece inside of a large water tank on September 21st 2012 Bridger accidentally drowned to death according to reports Bridger was wearing a scuba diving equipment and suffered a fatal heart attack while cleaning the inside of a deep pool in California that was going to be used for a film scene in the movie Bridger was 48 when he passed away it's easy to point fingers at the Lone Rangers box office critical and Commercial failures but there is nothing worse in the history of the movie's production than losing a crew member as a result of the mounting production problems and Rising costs The Lone Ranger was nearly cancelled before it was completed in retrospect for Disney's Financial sake maybe that's what should have happened with the tragic mishaps out of of the way it's time to turn to the technological aspects of the film cinematographer Bohan bazelli opted to film The Lone Ranger in anamorphic format doing so for the first time since he worked on Abel ferrera's Body Snatchers bizelli chose to use panav Vision C and G Series lenses to film The anamorphic scenes meanwhile roughly 70% of the movie takes place Outdoors during the daytime with bazelli opting to film with Kodak Vision 350d 5203 35 mm film using Panavision panoflex platinum and aoflex 435 cameras the nighttime and exterior scenes were filmed using an REI Alexa Studio camera a digital prototype first used by Roger deacons on Skyfall and belli wanted to use a digital camera for its 43 sensor and because it was the only Alexa camera with a rotating mirror shutter and Optical viewfinder as for the ey popping train sequences a large portion of the movie's budget was was allocated to physically building a 5em train track from the ground up in New Mexico verbinski favored practical sets over CGI Recreations meaning an entire Old West Town had to be erected from scratch to film the train scenes in order to film the trains traveling in all four geometrical locations verbinski had a large ovular train track built around the fictional town outside of alberquerque according to variety these efforts were taken so that verbinski could film action sequences in side and on top of real trains without having to stop the locomotives and turn them around additional rails were laid down around Moab Utah with other sequences shot on tracks owned by Union Pacific Railroad which typically doesn't work with film Productions to achieve the utmost authenticity the trains in the film could only travel 30 mph at most which was the standard speed of locomotives at that time that the story takes place again the costly measures continued to balloon the budget and spiral the production out of control even Hammer noticed the profligacy telling the press that the scene in which Tom Wilkinson's character Cole flips his pocket watch the world's greatest yo-yo artist was flown in to teach Wilkinson how to achieve the trick that's how wastefully extravagant the budget for the Lone Ranger was in the end despite Disney banking on the track record of Depp and verbinski from their Pirates of the Caribbean success The Lone Ranger eventually became the biggest box office bomb in the history of Walt Disney Studios in addition to the estimated $250 million production budget the studio spent an additional 150 million on marketing prints and ads while The Lone Ranger ultimately gross 26.5 million worldwide Disney ended up losing somewhere between 160 and 190 million when all the receipts were tallied roughly one year after the movie was released the president of Walt Disney Studios Alan Bergman was asked in a conference call if the studio would be able to recoup the financial losses of John Carter and The Lone Ranger to which Bergman stated quote I'm going to answer that question honestly and tell you no it didn't get that much better we did lose that much money on those movies end quote as a result all plans for turning the Lone Ranger into the next lucrative Disney movie franchise were declared dead and to add insult to injury The Lone Ranger fared just as poorly among film critics when the film was finally released in July of 2013 the film currently holds a dismal 31% Rotten Tomato score with a lackluster 37 meta score following the poor reviews brookheimer Depp hammer and verbinski publicly took issue with American Film critics declaring that the film was being judged on all of the distracting external factors rather than the movie itself according to Depp who says quote the reviews were written 7 to 8 months before we released the film and Hammer echoed that sentiment adding quote if you go back and read those negative reviews most of them aren't about the content of the movie but more what's behind it despite the widespread critical misgivings The Lone Ranger still does have its Defenders a few weeks after the film was released brookheimer told vulture I think it's going to be looked back on as a brave wonderful film I've been through this a lot with journalists we made a movie years ago called Flash Dance and I remember one journalist just giving us the worst review ever then about 5 years later we get this kind of love letter that he totally missed it that he loved the movie and it's kind of the same with you that at any time it's on you have to watch it it happens you know meanwhile Quenton Tarantino named The Lone Ranger among his 10 favorite movies of 2013 for whatever that's worth still still the support wasn't enough to prevent The Lone Ranger from being nominated for five golden raspberry Awards including one win for worst prequel remake ripoff or sequel ironically verbinski's version isn't the only Lone Ranger movie to NN Razz before the 2013 version the last theatrical Lone Ranger movie belonged to William a franker the legend of the Lone Ranger released in 1981 the movie was an abject critical and commercial failure that ranks as one of the worst TV adaptations of all time the biggest gripe concerned the casting of Clinton's spillsbury as John Reed a nonprofessional actor who was a photographer by trade spillsbury was cast on the strength of looking great in a mask and was given a three picture deal despite having zero acting experience similarly Tonto was played by Michael horse a nonprofessional actor who worked as a silver smith and had only one previous credit to his name while horse would go on to star in David Lynch's Twin Peaks spillsbury never appeared in a movie again in his life more disgraceful yet spilsbury's voice was dubbed by James kech yet spillsbury still won razis For Worse actor and worse new star in 1981 in total the legend of the Lone Ranger was nominated for six razis and won four of them who knows perhaps big screen adaptations of the Lone Ranger will forever be cursed to suffer a cruel fate while could do a whole other video on how much the movie blatantly steals from other classic westerns it's probably best to pull the Reigns back and simply declare that that is what the happened to The Lone Ranger the movie's Financial cost spiraled out of control before a frame of film was shot and due to the Spate of unforeseen mishaps injuries diseases wildfires weather delays and a tragic onset fatality the film was nearly cancelled before gor ver bin could complete his directorial vision the production woses were compounded by negative reviews from critics which in turn led to a disastrous performance at the theatrical box office when added up the movie's marketing and exhibition costs equaled anywhere between $60 and $190 million in losses for Disney in 2023 The Lone Ranger officially surpassed John Carter to become Walt Disney studios's all-time biggest Financial flop Johnny Depp and Army Hammer have since been ostracized in Hollywood and verbinski has only made one feature film in the interim with 2016 Thriller a cure for wellness it's safe to say that everyone involved in The Lone Ranger could use a cure for wellness of some kind in 2023 [Music]

Channel: JoBlo Originals

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Keywords: joblo videos, joblo, wtf happened to, wtf happened to this celebrity, wtf happened to this movie, wtf, the best movie you never saw, awfully good movies, joblo originals, movie review, review, the lone ranger, lone ranger, lone ranger and tonto, lone ranger train chase, johnny depp tonto, armie hammer lone ranger, gore verbinski, the lone ranger movie, hans zimmer, tom wilkinson, ruth wilson, klinton spilsbury, the legend of the lone ranger, clayton moore

Id: 51xr08nH-To

Length: 19min 42sec (1182 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 17 2024