OT: Johnny Depp, Bruckheimer Blame Critics for ‘Lone Ranger’ Disaster

[Mysterious Benefactor]

The following article from Variety is really quite interesting, particularly because I believe it's the first time Depp and/or those closely associated with him have struck back at the press. And it's not like they're simply crying over spilled milk because we've mentioned many times here on the forum about how there really are certain segments of the entertainment press who just can't wait to do a hatchet job on Depp and his projects.

Johnny Depp, Bruckheimer Blame Critics for ‘Lone Ranger’ Disaster
Armie Hammer adds: the reviews 'slit the jugular' of Disney feature

Of course, the really interesting thing from our POV is that the Depp/DS film was a big international hit compared to the Lone Ranger because as of now it's only pulled in $175,465,352 worldwide.

[madscntst]

Thanks MB.  I'm a little surprised, actually, that Johnny has been this vocal about it.  Already there is a backlash- a couple of articles are calling him "delusional", but I say good for him, and for sticking up for the movie.  For DS, I don't know that there were a lot of negative expectations until the first photos surfaced, but for The Lone Ranger, it's true that the press was very negative about it from the start.

With regard to The Lone Ranger's box office, while we have much to be proud of in terms of DS doing much better than the press usually admits it did, don't write The Lone Ranger off as an international box office failure quite yet.  It is only just opening or about to open in some major markets such as Japan, UK, France, and Germany.  I think that Johnny is still very popular in Japan, at least, but I do fear that people are just not interested in the western genre, and maybe it'll be even harder to sell a western to non-US audiences.  I was listening to a report about westerns on the radio the other day, and how with a few exceptions such as Django Unchained and True Grit, the modern, urban audience is just not as interested as they used to be in westerns.  Of course, this made me think of horror films and how they are also often overlooked, too- everyone wants huge action films, preferably with superheroes 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Yes, we've mentioned several times how few supernatural-themed films do a bang-up business at the box office. And the same holds true for westerns, especially outside the US. (Not to mention that a big foreign market like China doesn't allow supernatural-themed films to even be shown in their country.) But, of course, some entertainment writers completely disregard that there are realistically lower expectations for certain genres and they unrealistically expect that if certain people are involved in a film, it's going to be huge regardless of the genre - but that is very rarely the case. And anyone who actually pays attention to such box office trends would know that. But the sad fact of the matter is that way too many entertainment writers these days do very little, if any, research into how the different genres of film have fared in the past.

[Gerard]

I didn't the SLR, not because I thought it would be bad, or because of marketing, but because I've never been into the Masked Man.  I had absolutely no interest.  Could that be a reason why quite a few also didn't attend it?  Was there any real interest?  I don't know.  Was there a particular audience for which it was targetted (not counting Lone Ranger fans)?  However, it would seem aiming for a specific group of people would spell possible economic problems, as any film should try to broaden its appeal.  But that's neither here nor there.

I'm sure there are cirtics and pundits out to "get" Depp.  That happens when someone or something is popular.  In an attempt to be "sophisticated," some find it necessary to be contrarians.  And when "sophistication" is established, then everyone starts jumping on that badwagon.  They don't want to appear "untrendy" when going after what is "trendy."  I can kinda understand that because I'm a bit of a contrarian myself.  I loathe, for example, facebook.  I refuse to become a part of it and wallow and relish in belittling it to friends who can't live without it.  I tell them I will join it when it is no longer "trendy" and is down to its last three members only because it will be contarian to then be a subscriber.  But back to Depp, as to why he's been singled out when other actors/actresses are just as popular is a mystery.  Meryl Streep makes like 80 to 90 movies a year and any year cannot go by without her receiving at least one Oscar nomination.   Maybe it's because so many of her films are more "artsy" and, save for maybe one that turns into a blockbuster, people aren't storming the theaters to see her latest flick.  How many saw Julie and Julia?  I saw it with friends.  Other than with a half-dozen, at most, other patrons, the cinema was empty.  We enjoyed it.  Those who saw it enjoyed it.  The critics loved it.  No one else saw it.  Most have never heard of it.  That makes it "artsy" and "sophisticated," at least to the critics.

It does seem that the big F-X, bang-'em-up,, all-action, monsters-stomping-Tokyo, super-heroes-everywhere movies are all the rage.  If it can't be done with CGI, there's no point in doing it at all.  In a way, The Lone Ranger was part-and-parcel of the bang-'em-up, all-action, big-hero thing.  So why didn't it draw in a crowd?  Maybe because no monsters were stomping Tokyo; maybe the Lone Ranger hero just doesn't resonate anymore; who knows?

But I must bring up a point of disagreement with you, oh magnificent MB!  It seems to me that supernatural thrillers have done quite well in the past few years, both critically and financially.  They rarely get kudos when it comes to dishing out the "major awards" because the "sophisticated" don't like to take them seriously, even if they like them (some films like The Exorcist and Silence of the Lambs noteable exceptions, the latter being considered the only horror movie [albeit not of a supernatural subject matter] to win the Oscar for Best Picture).  The Conjuring has cleaned up in both reviews and revenues.  World War Z has done the same (and everyone was expecting it to be a flop).  So why was DS12 so dragged through the coals by a goodly number of "critics" (but certainly not all of them, not by a long shot, but enough to declare it a "flop" even though it wasnt, again not by a long shot)?  Because it was Depp.  So why this anti-Depp "hysteria?"  See above.  Depp has become the contrarians' facebook - too trendy so he has to be untrendy.  If he made a movie that would put Citizen Kane to shame, they would lambast it and do everything in their power to keep people away.  After all, that's "sophisticated," at least for now until that trend passes.

Gerard

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I didn't mean to imply that supernatural-themed films don't make money - they do. But they don't make the blockbuster sort of money that other genres might. As I've said before, unless the word "Twilight" is somewhere in the title, most supernatural-themed films make well under $100 million. For instance, two of 2012's most successful supernatural-themed films were Underworld Awakening(vampires/werwolves) and The Woman in Black(ghosts), and they made $62.3 million and 54.3 million, respectively. And as for this year, while The Conjuring is doing extremely well for a non-Twilight film - it's currently at $109.7 million and counting - it's likely to top off somewhere around $130 million, well under what's considered blockbuster fare these days. And while World War Z does heavily feature zombies and is at $196.1 million and counting, its genre is mostly regarded as a disaster(the good kind)/action film.

[Gerard]

Did you say "Twilight," MB?  Twilight?  Oh, ick, shriek, scream, agggg!  Now, anything with "Twilight" in it, I would consider a "disaster" film. 

As an aside, speaking of The Conjuring, I attended a lecture by Ed and Lorraine Warren (who are featured in the film) back in the mid-80's.  The briefly mentioned the case, even playing an audio tape from it (part of it featured in the film), but would say nothing more, stating that it had been "too personel" for them.  Ed Warren passed away a few years ago.  Lorraine Warren has a cameo in the movie.

Gerard

[dom]

For what it's worth, my brother-in-law (38 y/o) stated that he had no desire of seeing the The Lone Ranger because he doesn't like Johnny Depp, and that is because "He plays the same character in every movie.". So perhaps Johnny is becoming boring or as they used to say, Box Office Poison. This is the same reason he gave for not seeing Dark Shadows - just not interested in a Depp flick.

I've heard very few people in my lifetime say they give a rats ass about what the critics are saying.

[madscntst]

Gerard, you bring up many great points!  The Lone Ranger was a Disney movie, so I think they were trying to appeal to families with kids- I think they wanted to do for westerns what they had been able to do with pirates- take a theme that had not been successful recently and make it appealing again.  But they didn't succeed this time.  I saw TLR 3 times in theaters, and the audiences, small though they were, seemed to enjoy it very much... but the audiences were way older than what I think they wanted the target audience to be.  Lots of folks my age (50's) and lots of folks post-retirement age.  Also, while the film has a lot of comedy in it, and you can see that from the trailer, what the trailer doesn't show you is that there are some dark and violent parts, as well.  That's fine for someone like me, an adult who's not too squeamish, but did they show a little too much violence for kids?  (The movie was rated PG-13, as were all the Pirates films).  Finally, the film is long (2.5 hr.) and that was my personal biggest fault with it- it's probably hard to sit through for a younger kid.  So in essence- maybe they were targeting the wrong audience?  Younger kids may just not "get" the western, and they have no knowledge of the history of westerns or of The Lone Ranger.  Whereas older folks will like it because they remember The Lone Ranger or because they grew up with a lot of westerns in the 60's and 70's (just like targeting an older audience might've worked better for DS).

As for Depp playing "the same character", that, to me, is a lazy statement (no offense to your bro-in-law, dom   It's very easy and simplistic to say "oh, he's putting on makeup again, it must be the same character" but Tonto couldn't have been more different than Jack Sparrow, IMHO.  Here I blame the trailer, which showed more of the slapstick moments and made the characters seem more similar than they really are.  But even if they did have some similar characteristics, nobody says that George Clooney or Tom Cruise are "playing the same character", and they really ARE, most of the time!

But Tonto was a very troubled and sad character, and his makeup and the crow on his head were all quite serious and important to his backstory. His character was also much quieter and contemplative than Jack Sparrow. That wasn't really conveyed very well in the trailer, nor did most of the critics mention that in their slams- everyone was focused on the makeup and the "silly" crow.  And this is why I totally get Johnny's statement that the reviews were written 8 months in advance- people saw that first production still of Johnny in his makeup, and they made their mind up.  I also think a very similar thing happened when people saw the first photo of Barnabas- even DS fans were horrified by the makeup.  While as a longtime fan of Burton/Depp even I have started getting a little tired of Johnny looking pale in every Burton film, I thought that DS was the one film in which being pale made sense!   But people have become fatigued of that look, and I think the reaction against it has become knee-jerk, which is kind of sad.  I do think that what you said, dom, about Johnny returning to his previous box-office poison status, is a good point.  As a fan I never cared about his films making billions of dollars or breaking box office records, but I do want people to keep an open mind about him and I hope that in the future he can get out of this current sentiment against him.

Gerard, about the issue of horror films not doing well at the box office, I think that was me more than MB- he just agreed with me   I did hear good things about The Conjuring but had no idea it was doing THAT well, but I'm thrilled to hear it!  I did not see it yet, but I am always happy when a film like this does well.  But I do think that horror films in general don't usually do that well, and examples like The Conjuring and The Cabin In The Woods (I think that one did very well??) always make me happy because they make me hope that folks will give the genre more of a chance.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

The Cabin In The Woods (I think that one did very well??)

Given the way some in the media fell all over themselves when it came to that film, one would think it was huge. But the truth is it made $42 million domestically and $66.4 million worldwide, which wasn't even what DS made domestically. The Cabin In The Woods was the opposite of DS last year - it was a film that the media made seem like a much bigger hit than it was, while so many in the media wanted DS to be a flop when it wasn't. 

[Patti Feinberg]

I can't believe JD would be 'box office poison'; he's very, very well-liked in US, no??

I personally never liked the Lone-Ranger show, so, I would not have gone to see it. I've lived in Georgia for 7 years now, and hey, it's a banner time; I've been to the movie theatre 4 times (which is seriously about 10 times more than the prior 15 years, I kid you not).

Funny, I had been thinking about starting a thread...now's a good a place/time as any.

I love Johnny Depp. Believe he's a very talented actor.

But, having said these things....I believe JD is/has become a 'character actor'.

(For me, until very recently, the phrase 'character actor' summoned the picture of the wonderful Jack Elam for me...don't know why.)

I don't mean he is 'only' a 'character actor', but it does seem (with a few terrific exceptions) that he does play characters
Barnabas
Tonto
Edward Scissorhands
all the 'Pirate' movies/Jack Sparrow (I think that's the 'character's' name)...

A terrific exception would be his character in "Secret Window", which of course I own!!!

All IMHO,

Patti

[michael c]

depp detractors the DS12 malcontents are just NOT going to let the makeup thing go. they're like rottweilers and an old shoe...


over on one of the FB boards JUST TODAY when this subject came up someone posted that old chestnut of a photo of depp(in whiteface, hat and funny sunglasses)and bella heathcote walking on the beach that launched the hysteria surrounding his appearance in the film when it was leaked nearly two years ago(yes, it's been that long).

needless to say the usual chorus of unflattering comparisons to Michael Jackson followed despite the fact that anyone who had actually, you know, SEEN the film would know that other that that brief scene depp did not remotely resemble Jackson throughout the rest of the film. in fact his appearance in the scene itself seems to have been softened in post-production and most of film took place indoors anyways.


but they're not going to drop it.

[madscntst]

Heck, people are still comparing Johnny as Willy Wonka to Michael Jackson, despite the fact that as far as I know, Jackson never, never had a haircut like that.  (It was the pale face and sunglasses, I guess, but c'mon, is every pale person in sunglasses Michael Jackson?       )  Oh well.

Patti, I think that Johnny would take it as a compliment that you consider him a character actor.  I think that's what he's always tried to be- he's often said how he is uninterested in any of the typical "leading man" roles.  I think the closest he ever came was in Chocolat, where he was basically there as eye candy    But even then, he got to do an Irish accent and play the guitar, so he still did something to make the part "his own."

[Patti Feinberg]

Heck, people are still comparing Johnny as Willy Wonka to Michael Jackson, despite the fact that as far as I know, Jackson never, never had a haircut like that.  (It was the pale face and sunglasses, I guess, but c'mon, is every pale person in sunglasses Michael Jackson?

That's funny!!      )  Oh well.

Patti, I think that Johnny would take it as a compliment that you consider him a character actor.  I think that's what he's always tried to be- he's often said how he is uninterested in any of the typical "leading man" roles.  I think the closest he ever came was in Chocolat, where he was basically there as eye candy    But even then, he got to do an Irish accent and play the guitar, so he still did something to make the part "his own."

I've never seen Chocolat, I didn't know he was 'eye-candy' (that's not a stretch at all!)
Please though, don't forget about Secret Window, with the wonderful John Turterro (sp); it's such a multi-layered, wonderfully done movie.

I really didn't know that JD did want to be a leading man....glad for the compliment....and hey, comparing him to Jack Elam IS high praise...

Patti

[madscntst]

So, now that the year is nearly over, Forbes has made a list of the 10 worst performing films of 2013, and of course, The Lone Ranger is nowhere to be found.  In fact, according to this Advocate article, the film made the studio a "modest profit" after all.

Forbes worst performing films of 2013

But it's too late to change the public perception of how the film did, and I'm sure that most folks will always just keep assuming it was a huge flop.  Just like DS and The Tourist before it 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I'm sure that most folks will always just keep assuming it was a huge flop.  Just like DS and The Tourist before it 

Sad and true! And mostly the reason for that is that, unlike how everyone under the sun seems to just love to jump on the bandwagon when it comes to reporting that a film was a flop, very few of those same people will ever followup with the report that it actually wasn't. 

Thanks for the link to the article, madscntst.