Back in August, we heard reports that Disney was fixing to shut down Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger due to its extraordinary budget (upwards of $250 million). Verbinski, along with producer Jerry Bruckheimer, were amenable – offering to deliver their film closer to a more affordable $215 million. Production’s been underway since late February and, according to The Hollywood Reporter, things aren’t going as planned:
“Insiders say the movie, which began shooting Feb. 28 in New Mexico, is not only running days or possibly weeks behind its 120-day shooting schedule, it’s also over its revised budget. Several sources say the effects-heavy Lone Ranger is now back at its original cost of $250 million, while one source close to the production says it has surpassed that figure.”
The piece goes on to say that Disney is pressing Verbinski to cut some of the costlier scenes, a move no doubt intended to suppress the bleeding.
Disney has a real situation on their hands. They’re in a transitional phase with studio head Rich Ross’ removal a few months back. I’d imagine new chief Alan Horn (formerly President and COO at Warner Bros.) is still getting accustomed to the Mouse House’s way of doing things, making it easier for Gore and Bruckheimer’s production to get off track and out of control.
All of this sounds very similar to John Carter – another recent Disney film with a notoriously inflated budget (that probably cost Ross his job, in part). Complicating matters is the fact that this has also been something of a passion project for Johhny Depp, whose role as Native-American sidekick Tonto is a performance he’s been angling towards for quite a long time. I suspect that if Depp were playing the Ranger himself (Armie Hammer is in the role), many of Disney’s concerns would float away. That’s no disrespect to Hammer mind you, but Disney’s biggest star not sharing the name on the title card makes for a confusing way to sell a picture – you can bet that The Lone Ranger will be marginalized in his own trailer.
This has proven to be a very bizarre take on a character that most moviegoers have limited familiarity with anyways. It’s been reported that the film’s plot is firmly entrenched in the supernatural. At one time the production even called for ghost-coyotes (great band name), which have since been 86’d. Regardless of the film Verbinski, Bruckheimer and Depp had intended, this is the second time Disney has stepped in to put their foot down – so it wouldn’t be a total shock if the team behind Pirates of the Caribbean takes a very real hit if the film proves to be a hatchet job.
Even with all of John Carter‘s problems, Andrew Stanton and Co. delivered a film that was at the very least serviceable (if not particularly profitable). Do you think Verbinski and his team can do the same? Or is this another in a line of live-action struggles at Disney?
10 comments
I look forward to reading the post-mortem articles on this. I’m dying to know precisely how a western can become this fucking expensive, when close proximity of natural sets to the studios in Burbank was the sole reason for the development of the western as a genre. Westerns are affordable by design.
Very astute observation. I’ve read that Verbinski’s really driving the “photo-real” aspect for special effects. So I’m guessing a large part of the budget is going to be eaten up in post.
I remember at the end of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Kingdom Skull, there were about four minutes of special effects that Indy and friends just stood back and watched. I thought “this is ok, but could we please get back to Indiana Jones?”
I have a feeling this will be like that–the Lone Ranger will be just another part of the scenery.
With this, and the floundering of Dark Shadows, are we finally seeing a point where Johnny Depp is reeled in a bit? I was a fan of the actor before the first pirates, but it seems like since that movie, Depp has been rolling out increasingly bloated Verbinski/Burton projects where he’s allowed to indulge his worst actorly impulses. Maybe when this fails utterly, it might convince him to ditch such silly endeavors and return to more serious artistic roles? I doubt it, but the man’s likely made more money than a corrupt wallstreet bank at this point. It’s not like he needs the paychecks.
I wonder if The Tourist’s failure didn’t break him somewhat. He’s immersed himself in franchise fare ever since.
It’s always easy spending someone else’s money, Disney needs some proper producers. Fuck these people and their ‘pet projects’, spend your own money. Johnny Depp is such a spent screen-presence anyway.
Agree. Before Pirates, I would talk about Johnny Depp as a Brando-esque giant of an actor. While he was great in Pirates, his work since then has relegated him in my mind to a talented weirdo, even as he’s grown in reputation with (seemingly) everyone else. Or maybe I’m just a contrary hipster who can’t like someone popular. That’s probably it.
I agree, but you could say the same thing about Raiders. (the obvious difference being that I actually was interested in seeing what happened in Raiders)
But then Depp does something like the cruelly underrated Rum Diary and totally redeems himself. He can bring when he wants to.
If they’d started at 250mill, they’d be breaking 300mill right now – so there’s that I guess.
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