The Mystery of The Lone Ranger

Well, it gives me no pleasure to kick a man while he's down, so while i will not be reviewing The Lone Ranger as a movie, i will be attempting to analyze the reasons for this movies faliure. The lone ranger is now the biggest box office bomb in history, in fact, of the five biggest box office bombs in history, three of them are Disney movies, with The Lone Ranger being the biggest bomb of all time. Disney expects that they will have to attribute a loss of 160 million in their entertainment division during the third quarter of 2013 solely due to this film. I reviewed the trailer for this film back in march and predicted that it would bomb, and i would be lying if i didn't feel a small smidge of smug satisfaction at this films failure, despite the fact that it was not exactly a difficult call.

The lone ranger cost Disney 215 million to produce, and when factoring in marketing and distribution costs most likely cost Disney 375 million at the end of the day. The New York Times estimated that the film would have to gross 800 million in order to break even when factoring in revenue splits from cinema's. The film grossed a mere 217 million dollars, a monumental failure by anyone's standards. The highest grossing western of all time is Dances with wolves, which grossed 424 million dollars worldwide, thus the lone ranger would have had to gross twice as much as the highest grossing western of all time, to simply break even, madness! It is also important to note that the most successful western of the past few years was Django Unchained, which is simply a masterpiece and which was exclusively a film for adults.

Interestingly enough, studies showed that over 50 percent of all ticket sales were to over 25's, and 25 percent were to over 60's, much higher than for a traditional Disney movie, thus the real issue here is marketing, Disney marketed this film to children, and except for Disney's 2004 Home on the Range, there has really never been a successful western for younger audiences. Really Disney never should have marketed this film to kids, and should have released it under its touchstone banner, remember that this is the studio that released Nightmare Before Christmas under Touchstone, because it wasn't suitable for children. One can imagine that if this film had been marketed differently, perhaps more adults would have gone to see it.

Without commenting on the successes and failures of the movie, it is easy to see with this films inflated budget, marketing campaign and the projects general misguidedness, why this film failed so epically.

The Overdue Django Review

Well, when i first started this blog i did a short form post on the controversy surrounding Quentin Tarantino's western, and looking at the Django Unchained poster reflected in my computer screen it occurred to me that i had untill now failed to give this film a full blown review, so here goes. Django is an epic homage to spaghetti westerns of the 1940's, hence the title. The film comes after Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, and is the second of what he refers to as his rewritten history trilogy, to be completed.

The film is about the antebellum south during the 1880's, and is a story of slavery, freedom, racism and a quest for justice. The film won 2 academy awards and was nominated for a further three nominations including best picture. I have also on this blog commented on the proverbial screwup of the best director category at this years Oscars, Tarantino like all other worthy directors this year (namely Bigelow and Affleck) failed to be nominated for an Oscar for directing, and Ang Lee won, enough said!

The film is a stylized visual treat, with a great soundtrack that combines modern hip hop music with old TV western style score, that manages to be nostalgic yet for some reason modern. The films visual identity comes in part due tho the fact that it is filmed on traditional film, of which Tarantino is a huge proponent, giving the film a sharp yet somewhat hazy quality, and a nostalgic look, which harks back to period westerns such as 'The Dollars Trilogy' and 'The Good The Bad and The Ugly'. Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio have true star turns on the film as the quick talking Dr Schultz (Waltz won an Oscar for his role as the doctor) and as the cruel slave owner and sadistic ruler of Candieland, Calvin Candie (despite deserving it, Dicaprio failed to garner an Oscar nomination, admittedly this was a tough year, given a large number of good performances, however given DiCaprio having also failed in previous years to garner nominations for worthy performances, I can't say that this oversee was anything of a surprise).

I spoke rather recently about my loathing of aggressive films that attempt clout you round the face with their do good messages, its a little like being slapped in the face with a fish. The great thing about Unchained is that even though the messages of slavery and racism are there, in the subtexts and subplots of the film, and in the imagery of the film, memorable images include blood spattering on white cotton bolls evoking the slavery and blood behind the cotton industry in the American south, and the startling imagery of scarlet blood on crisp white snow.

Overall this film truly is great and most importantly of all devilishly entertaining, and is in many senses better than other Oscar nominees (Lincoln I'm talking to you!) in that it manages to sustain its audience  throughout the length of it's trajectory, and leaves the audience wanting more, yet feeling that all the ends have been tied up, it has a great message, without being overbearing, and features great art direction and a fantastic visual style, and leaves the viewer a little anxious for whatever opus Tarantino will give birth to next. Rating: A+

Django: Django. The D is silent. 

The Lone Ranger - Trailer Review

Before we get started a word on reviews, i will now be rating all films and trailers on an A+ to D- scale (so Movie 34 would be a D- and The Lord of the Rings an A+!)

Here i am going to analyze the trailer for Disney's upcoming western epic The Lone Ranger, starring Johnny Depp and Arnie Hammer

I must confess that i have never seen the original tv series however i do quite like westerns, ie Zorro and Django Unchained. However before i talk about the content of the trailer, i feel i simply must talk about money, doesnt disney ever learn? John Carter was a failure of epic proportions, i mean really epic, yet the next two live action films Disney produces are Oz, the Great and Powerful, and The Lone Ranger, both of which have budgets well over 200 million. Thankfully Oz was a success during a period of disastrous box office recipts, however i don't see the same success for The Lone Ranger, as Oz was based of a film that was still beloved and popular, whereas The Lone Ranger? Less so...

The trailer looks quite good, and seems action packed and amusing, and shows what seems to be a good yet predictable performance from Depp, the trailer looks epic, and shows many 'wow' moments, whether these are the only big scenes in the movie or whether there are others remains to be seen (it is very annoying to see a comedy where the only funny bits are in the trailer).

 

Let me now talk about casting, I already said that Depps performance seems to be very predictable, yet time will tell if this is simply the same performance as in Pirates. Arnie Hammer, whom most will know from the Social Network is an interesting choice, yet again time will tell if his performance shows any nuance. The casting which really excites me is that of Helena Bonham-Carter, as Red Harrington.

 

The trailer is a visual delight, like the last three of Disney's live action offerings, yet time will tell if critics will have the same lackluster response to the story and character development. Trailer Rating B

Is anyone excited for The Lone Ranger? Leave your comments in the box below.

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