Comment

Comment by John Lemus on June 18, 2012 at 9:20am

I fail to give three shits about this movie. I just can't image how Johnny will voice this character.

Either is Captain Jack voice or his Hunter S Thomson Voice. Or perhaps a new character will be born of this.

Comment by Jojotogi on June 15, 2012 at 11:10am

@ghostwriter - that's not how the studio system works. They don't just take the box office gross of a film and redistribute it amongst their other film projects.

After the grosses come in, taxes are deducted from it, any percentage guaranteed the filmmakers or talent is taken out, and the cost of marketing is covered. The amount of money a film actually makes for a studio is considerably less than what the public hears a film makes at the theaters.

Also, the bulk of the money goes back to the corporation and gets redistributed to all the branches, not just true filmmaking side. Disney is a massive corporate entity that needs a constant stream of revenue to support it. There are a lot of branches to support and literally tens of thousands, if not millions, of employees to pay.

Plus, the Avengers is a special case. Disney had to shell out a massive amount to buy it from Paramount, who still retains some percentage of the gross. On took of that, DIsney has put out several, recent live action films that did poorly at the box office, John Carter being the most visible and recent of them. The Avengers being a hit does indeed make a lot of people rich, but it also helps cover the loss this other films caused (the failure of John Carter, alone cost the studio $170 million).

A studio survives on films like The Avengers and barely gets by on its modest hits.

Comment by Jojotogi on June 15, 2012 at 10:57am

@ Pepe - yes, but I can still point to how inflation has effected the budgets of those smaller films also. Back in the 90s, small, character driven films like True Grit or even stripped-down actioners like Hann could have been made for $10 million or less. Aside from the location shooting in the former and some of the set pieces in the latter, there is nothing in them that screams "mega-budget." And Matt Damon and Jeff Bridges are the kind of actors who are willing to take pay cuts if they want to star in smaller pictures. Depp is not, or at least he hasn't been for a long time now.

And if you're trying to compare the budgets of True Grit and Hanna to the one for The Lone Ranger, you;re comparing apples to oranges. The former are small-scale, character driven films while the latter is a blockbuster with a lot of baggage attached. True Grit, I might point out, was (at least partly) personally financed by heiress-gone-arthouse-movie-mogul Megan Ellis, who thought it was a story worth (re)telling.

The Lone Ranger is being produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, one of the biggest producers to ever set up shop in Hollywood, stars an actor who got paid with an island for his last big blockbuster, and is being helmed by the director of the original Pirates movies. Names like that don't get 

Also, like I said before, Lone Ranger is being set up as a western counterpart to the Pirates franchise, meaning it'll be an action/adventure, sfx, monster-filled extravaganza. The plot of the script revolves around the Ranger werewolves, and there were going to be CGI spirits coyotes at one point in the film. Where were the spirit coyotes in True Grit or Hanna?

Bottom line, it's not appropriate to compare small-bidgeted, character-driven films to this impending Bruckheimer flick. And the argument that films these days can still be made for small amounts of money is moot when you realize that inflation has caused all film budgets to increase.

Comment by ghostwriter on June 15, 2012 at 10:16am

Why is Disney so worried about budget after the tons of money Avengers has pulled in.  Give Johnny Depp is little costume film and be done with it.

Comment by HudsonsirhesHicks on June 15, 2012 at 12:14am

@Jojotogi - yeah, but then you see quality films like True Grit that cost only $38 million, Hanna which cost $30 million, and not forgetting Monsters - which cost only $500,000. 

 These are all examples of great films (made in the last 2 years), that were made cheaply yet were brilliant. So I'm not convinced that a film like Lone Ranger needs to cost almost a quarter billion dollars.

Comment by Jojotogi on June 14, 2012 at 10:55pm

@ Arctic Douche

You're missing my point. The LOTR films were made over a decade ago, when the budgets to make films were considerably less than than it is now. Because of inflation and the decreasing value of the American dollar, production on the Hobbit films which has gone on for a year now is going to cost $500 million combined, nearly double the budget of all the LOTR films ($270 million).

A Pirates of the Caribbean-style action-adventure film (and yes, Disney has stated they want this to essentially be Pirates but int he Old West) like the Lone Ranger is going to cost an obscene amount of money. Factor in the fact that it's a Bruckheimer production (which are always overfunded), it stars Johnny Depp (who commands an 8 figure paycheck), and it is being shot on location (a practice most studios have tried to avoid since the invention of sound stages and studios since location shooting is pricey), and you have a recipe for overspending.

You can argue about the logistics or the "scale" of a film, but it's a simple fact of economics. Films cost more because the world economy has made things more expensive.

Comment by HudsonsirhesHicks on June 14, 2012 at 7:11pm

Disney needs to seriously ask itself who's really going to want to pay to see this. Apart from the Depp drawcard, how many people under 30 would have any interest in this?

Comment by Jojotogi on June 14, 2012 at 10:21am

Plus that look Depp has with the painted face and dead bird is, apparently, historically accurate.

Who knew?

Comment by Jojotogi on June 14, 2012 at 10:20am

@ District 9 customer service

He's "avoided it" because of his ancestry. He has Native American ancestors on his mother's side, and he's been campaigning to get this film made, mostly so he can play Tonto. He's been trying to change the portrayal of Native Americans in film for year (he directed a film back in the 90s called The Brave that dealt with the psyche of Native American males), so much to the point that some activists have called him Marlon Brando's successor in that regard. Plus, the production has made it a semi-big deal about making nice with the tribes whose land they are shooting on, including photo spots of tribal leaders with Depp (in costume, of course).

Comment by Jojotogi on June 14, 2012 at 10:08am

@ Arctic Douche

The Return of the King (and the other LOTR films) were made in the late 90s, when film budgets were;t nearly as inflated as they are now. Also, they smartly kept the cost down by not casting huge stars with massive salaries and shooting all three films in one massive 18 month shoot.

The Lone Ranger is being made with the 2012 value f the American dollar (i.e. not that strong, meaning inflated budgets), stars Johnny Depp (who was paid with a private island the last time he was in a Bruckheimer film) and is being made by a company that spent close to $300 million on just the third Pirates movie.

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