LONE RANGER:250 mil gets you canceled but 215 mil is just right ?

Lone Ranger... and werewolves? Sounds stupid to me, but I like the artwork in the link you provided.

Until Jon's post, I just assumed Ben was calling the Disney execs werewolves. Then I read the link. Are they for serious? WTF LOL and whatever other acronyms are appropos.

Well The Lone Ranger uses silver bullets, and werewolves can be killed with silver bullets, so I suppose the pairing makes some sense... Still, this sounds a lot like that awful Van Helsing movie.

As far as the budget goes, you're assuming that the only thing that was trimmed was the budget. I'm guessing this has more to do with back-end points to the major players involved, i.e. Disney is gonna keep more of the profits than Bruckheimer, Verbinski and Depp. They might have used it as a bargaining chip on salaries for the next "Pirates" film as well. There's still a gentleman's agreement between the studios and the Hollywood press to not report on those deals. For now, at least.

He's the Green Hornet's great-uncle, so I guess his movie has to get ruined too.

And we have our first photo..

 

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/54120

AWESOME. Thanks !

This sounds neato! Mama buy me and my best friend a ticket!
/12 years old



Seriously, I like the pic. Hope we get the whole LR TV series of old out for us to buy. (oops, looks like season 1 and 2 ARE out... adding to wish list, cool cool)

Yeah, I have the first two season on dvd I hope the color seasons are released as well.

I think I only ever watched those in B&W even if they were the color episodes.

My personal opinion only, but for whatever reason I can't stand Westerns.

Hated them growing up and have never seen one since. Even the successful ones like Tombstone and others I've passed by.

Maybe an age thing, they were popular at just the wrong time in my life and I refuse to watch them. No matter how well this may be done, I won't spend a penny seeing it in a theatre or renting it later.

Not just my opinion, but I'm predicting colossal bomb if this gets made.

The viability of The Lone Ranger expired long ago. Perhaps as a radio program in the 1930s and 1940s it was possible to suspend disbelief, but seeing a grown man wearing a powder-blue suit and a muskrat mask under a white stetson riding a white stallion across the American west is simply ludicrous. The western is an earthy and flexible genre, but not that flexible. In real life, the Texas Rangers were a gritty breed, and they would have shot this dandy off his horse with their Winchesters from half a mile away. Concealing your identity behind a mask could not possibly work in the American west. Even in the imaginary west, the Lone Ranger series and films do not represent the American western very well.

With all the plumage on his head and face Johnny Depp guarantees the drag queen crowd will turn out for this version of The Lone Ranger. There is not enough of them to make the film a hit, thankfully, and I agree this film will sink like a stone. Traditionally, Tonto has been played by a Native American. I have to be suspicious of the producer's motives in casting a white Anglo drag queen like Johnny Deep as a Native American. This version can't be a straightforward or serious western. There must be some kind of agenda going on, some kind of anti-western theme or male-gender-role deconstruction from an extreme feminist perspective. Since you hate westerns, you might like this one.

^^ it's just for fun. :p ... I know, it's hard to suspend disbelief. But so much fun stuff out there requires it. Most superhero stuff is that way. Most fantasy, most sci-fi...

^ Which is why I kind of like the LRs look in that pic. The clothes are more common for the era, and I think it would be more believeable for him to put the mask on and take it off as needed, instead of wearing it constantly.

 

The mask is a problem though. It looks like its made by the guys who made Batmans cowl.. its too "out of time" and should be a simple cloth with eye holes.

 

I think with some tweaking the concept could work. Its already been mentioned theyre not going for realistic or believeable and the film with definitely have a tongue in cheek approach - which IMHO is another disappointment.

 

BTW, I LOVE westerns. I wish we had more of them each year. I dont have a fondness for the ultraclean older westerns of the Wayne era and the like, but do like the ones from the 60s forward that have had a more realistic, grittier approach.

Good lord, it is FICTION! The Lone Ranger was created as escapist entertainment and nothing more. Take it for what it is, buy some popcorn and enjoy it.
With the production cost being so high, this may just break even, but maybe it will do great. If 'True Grit' can rake in $260 million, I'm guessing The Lone Ranger can draw some serious cash.

I highly doubt that this film will be anywhere close to being in the same league as True Grit.

No way. I was just illustrating the fact that they are both westerns. I think The Lone Ranger could possibly be a very likeable family film(close to the Disney Pirates movie) if it is done correctly.

Well I have to maintain that even in fiction THE LONE RANGER is ludicrous.
I don't think it will be successful. I'm absolutely sure it will lose money, even with Depp.
He sits there with a stuffed crow on his head, with the wings spread out.

I enjoy the 1956 and 1958 LONE RANGER features because of the vivid color, the Sedona landscapes and Old Tucson Studio location , even though I can't buy into the premise. I love westerns more than any other type of film and invest a lot time in watching them. I accept almost everything in the way of westerns, but I've never been able to buy into the Lone Ranger.

The demand for westerns is greater than the supply right now. American audiences want new westerns, but they want good ones and original ones, not retreads of worn-out and over-familiar ideas. Even with all the interest, $215 million is extravagant and higher than the market will support. TRUE GRIT is so different from THE LONE RANGER I don't think it's popularity will generate interest in the other.


Edited by Richard--W - 3/13/12 at 12:19am

Johnny Depp mugging for the camera in eyeliner AGAIN? I'll PASS.

The Lone Ranger may seem archaic due to the fact that Westerns evolved from larger than life romances into gritty "real life" romances. Still, the character is rooted in Western mythology, not fantasy. He may have worn a mask and lived in an idealized Old West, but his story is still firmly based on Western tropes: horses, gunslinging and HUMAN adversaries such as outlaws and cattle barons. If they can't update the character and make a film that is true to those roots then they shouldn't bother making one at all. The Lone Ranger vs Werewolves is just a retarded concept.

Somehow I don't think everything has to be etched in stone. They turned Treasure Island into a fun sci-fi thing once with space ships and robots. Not saying this is the same thing, I'm just saying I'm one who doesn't mind if they change a bit. Why does it have to be exactly to some set specifications. could just be a fun movie inspired by all these things you're listing.

A Texas Ranger who rides around righting wrongs in a muskrat mask is a retarded concept.

Actually, the first westerns in the silent era were historical docudramas and gritty real-life stories. They still observed the essential building blocks of dramatic structure, but they were connected to how the pioneers lived in down-to-earth ways. I have about 200 pre-1920 westerns on DVD-R -- not many, compared to what's been lost, but enough to judge the tone and temper of the genre. William S. Hart's early films, in particular, are serious dramas about western life, virtually devoid of mythology. You might say that by the mid-1920s the American western started to devolve into romantic myth-making and idealism.

In any case, down-to-earth westerns never stopped intruding into the mythological western. Perhaps 1out of every 200 is down-to-earth. Although audiences receive down-to-earth westerns the same way because the mythological west is a state of mind which people bring into the theater with them, like baggage.

Shouldn't the failure of Cowboys vs. Aliens have been a warning that audiences aren't interested in Western genre crossovers that are too literal? I'd maybe see a Lone Ranger movie if it was they just played the story straight: The lone survivor of an ambush on six Texas rangers by a band of outlaws is saved and nursed back to health by a Native American he himself saved during his career as a ranger. Together, they bring the outlaws to justice and make them atone for their crimes. There's enough there to fill a movie with. You don't need to add werewolves into the mix. My interest immediately plummets when you do.

Again, in reality it is. I'm not sure why you're trying to make an American icon from the days of radio, and the golden age of television out to be historically accurate.
Its like saying Lassie is a dumb concept because Collie dogs don't really help people, and couldn't possibly be that smart. We get the fact the in the world of entertainment small, and big screen characters are sometimes created to make us forget our troubles and escape for a little while to a "fantasy land". And if it is done correctly it will do exactly that.
Of course liberties will be taken for the sake of entertainment.

I would hate to hear how you feel about super heroes like Batman, and Superman.

Bryan ....
I didn't try to make the Lone Ranger look as if he was historically accurate.
The whole point is that he's not historically accurate and that he's not believable even on imaginary terms.
Go back and read the post again

Wasn't this for children? lol Don't mean to insult anyone on their opinions, but Lone Ranger is definitely something that should bring out your inner child or you should perhaps avoid anything like it. Being a MEGA-HUGE-FREAKIN-GIGANTIC fan of old kid's TV I have no problem with Lone Ranger getting done like this. I'm still waiting for my Krofft movies. Sigmund and the Seamonsters The Movie! lol

I think of the Lone Ranger as one of the super-hero bunch set in the Old West. Of course he's got no powers so he's more like Batman. Both are in essence, vigilantes. I grew up with both of these characters so I'm quite able to accept either as potentially rip roarin' entertainment. I've no problem with a western comic book hero, which is what The Lone Ranger is, except he wasn't inspired by the comic books (to my knowledge).

If they make a good movie, this will do well at the box office. The audience will respond to the movie according to its quality, I don't believe there's a built-in handicap because it's a super-hero in the West.

Richard, I think those pics you posted are more of a sign of the times they were made. That Hollywood era, everything was clean, and yes unrealistic.

 

I dont think the concept itself is doomed, more the interpretation of the time, was more campy, and looking at it today, I agree it looks silly.

 

Thats why I made that comment about not being so fond of the older style westerns - theyre just too clean and tidy, the clothes arent authentic,etc.

 

 

The more authentic clothes are a good idea, and a white hat might not have been as rare as you think. Im no historian - they have advisors for that sort of thing, but...

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-blPhQp5T1qg/TaZtuAgcRbI/AAAAAAAAAG0/WLqH2Ji5e8g/s1600/Txrangers3.jpg

 

Edited by JonZ - 3/16/12 at 4:52pm