It’s not a good time to be a cowboy.
After the flop that Cowboys & Aliens is turning out to be, we’ve seen movement on the Western front with Universal halting production of The Dark Tower as well as other studios trying to scale back on the big budget productions out there that may not recoup costs. The most surprising one landed today, though there are some that have hopes Monday may salvage things, with Disney indicating that they’re halting pre-production on The Lone Ranger. The film, which is spiraling in the $250 million range to make, has big names behind it to be sure with Gore Verbinski directing (who handled the first three Pirates movies and Rango) and Johnny Depp, who has starred in some of their biggest films to date when it comes to making money. The combination of the two and the producing side basically gave off the feeling that even with the higher costs, they’d recoup it because they know what they’re doing. But with other films failing at the moment, 3D faltering for many of the studios and the rash of successes with smaller budgeted R-Rated comedies, there’s definitely caution being thrown out there. And Disney has a lot of big budget films in the works, including John Carter which is reportedly over $200 million as well. And after the burning they got on Tron: Legacy, they’re backing up some while also eyeing how well the superhero wave is going, what with The Avengers going through the motions as well.
And don’t forget that the Hollywood industry took some extra pummeling this week in the stock market beyond what other companies were facing because of the result of the United States getting downgraded.
In the end, this isn’t a surprise when you look at the combination of factors, but many had hoped that the talent behind it would make it possible. After all, these are the people that took a theme park ride and had the fourth installment make over a billion dollars. They kind of have earned the leeway. Expect more details come Monday when people are back in the lot and attempts are made to salvage this in some way.
They got burned on TRON: Legacy? that had a budget of 170 million dollars and made 400 million worldwide plus whatever they got from DVD/BD/ Digital sales.
Yup, cause they also spent something like $150 million to market it and create a significant amount of buzz for it. And it’s domestic take was just $170, which is essentially breaking even before marketing costs. There’s a reason they didn’t just dive right into a sequel like they were hoping to.
Ahh Ok thanks Chris I didn’t know that they spent that much extra for just promotion well that sucks then I was really hoping for a 3rd one too….hopefully it eventually comes.