Hi-yo Silver, a-what???
Disney’s The Lone Ranger, starring Armie Hammer as the titular character and Johnny Depp as his iconic Indian sidekick Tonto, directed by Gore Verbinski (he, like Mr. Depp, of Pirates of the Caribbean fame), had a holiday opening much, much smaller than the studio hoped.
Pre-Fourth-of-July ticket sales show that Ranger only earned approximately $9.7M opening on about 3,900 screens on Wednesday night. Extrapolating that out over the holiday weekend means that Disney’s latest intended blockbuster property may have issues breaking the $50M dollar plane. This is bad news for a movie that cost around $250M to make. Ticket sales reflect only domestic numbers for now, but this thing’s gotta have legs both in the States and abroad to make up that kind of scratch.
Disney may be left scratching their heads this summer, wondering how they got John Cartered again. In the meantime, there are happier folks in Hollywood. Universal’s Despicable Me 2 (read the Renegade review, also by Shawn, here), which includes voice work from Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig, snagged a cool $34.5M
Source: The Hollywood Reporter