Heading into the
Independence Day (long) weekend, which will actually start Wednesday for many
folks, the big question at the box office is will The Lone Ranger flop? Here are my thoughts…
As has been documented
extensively, the film has an extremely high budget! It has a far higher budget
than any Western should have. But, then again, this is no ordinary Western.
This is a “Disney tent pole summer potentially franchise starting Western produced
by Jerry Bruckheimer”. Since the budget has ballooned into the $250+ range, the
film would have to come out like gangbusters to recoup that kind of investment.
Going up against Despicable Me 2, I
would be shocked if Ranger opened at
Number 1 and owned the weekend. In fact, I’ll go on a limb now to say it won’t
happen. Despicable Me 2 will most
surely earn the top spot as families flock to animated features that appeal to
children as well as adults (look at Monsters
University, which stayed in the lead this weekend in its second week of
release).
So, look for critics and
industry watchers to jump on The Lone
Ranger bashing bandwagon. With a troubled start (Disney scrapping the
project over budget fears, then green lighting it again), and a long production
history, I promise you there are those who want this movie to fail! Also, look for critics to point to the picture
as evidence of the “death of the Western,” and how the genre is no longer relevant.
For those who care what critics say, this sort of word-of-mouth will hurt the
film.
I expect The Lone Ranger to be a moderate
success. However, with its high production cost, the odds of being a
blockbuster are already stacked against this film. My hope is that a sequel is
still green lit, as I long for more big-budget Westerns on the silver screen.
My final prediction: The Lone Ranger will
not be a flop the epic proportion of Heaven’s
Gate, but it will not exactly set the box office on fire, either. I hope I
am wrong, but we’ll know this weekend. Have you seen the film? Let me know in
the comments section what you think of it.