As it goes, this movie already had a troubled time getting off the ground in production, as fervent fans can attest to.
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But first... if you're headed to see the movie, check this out
The Lone Ranger's Real Origin
Originally, the radio and original TV series was about six Texas Rangers who get ambushed by a gang. Our lead character survives, but leaves six graves to fool anyone who might have come back. But in the other five, one of them had his brother. So Reid dons the mask and is driven by his vow to bring the gang to justice.
Originally, he never had a name, but in the latter early years (eh?) he was given the name of Reid, (THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT in my trivia piece.).
The original radio show cranked out 2,900+ episodes. His mask was made from his brothers vest.
Silver was a white stallion that he and Tonto nursed back to health after a buffalo attack.
The Lone Ranger used silver bullets because like life, silver is valuable and should not be wasted.
He also vowed to never shoot to kill.
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There... that was the original story. Don't worry, there are probably zero spoilers in there for this newest movie.
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The History of The Lone Ranger's Production Woes
Feb of '08 Jerry Bruckheimer was reported to be working on a Lone Ranger movie. In Sept of '08 Johnny Depp was cast ... as Tonto. Yes, Tonto was cast first, which was odd or interesting, to say the least.
Then rumors swirled about George Clooney being the Lone Ranger and in May of '09, Mike Newell was being reported to having landed the directors gig.
In Feb of '10, a screenwriter was announced and then in Nov of '10, Gore Verbinski was reported to have the job of director.
In Feb of '11, Gore said this will be an unconventional Lone Ranger. (He failed to note he was swapping out names and characters from his Pirates movie franchise or that he was thinking of adding werewolves to the story. Not a typo folks. Google it!)
In April of '11, Ryan Gossling was rumored for the role of the Ranger but the following month, all the jabber mouths were silenced when Armie Hammer was announced as the second fiddle, I mean cast as The Lone Ranger.
Then in Aug of 2011, Disney cancelled production because it had a production budget of $250 million. Verbinski was tasked with cutting at least $30 million from the budget.
Then in Sept of 2011 or thereabouts, rumors swirled about Verbinski might not be directing. (BTW, the film was originally slated for a Dec 2012 release date!)
{Back then, Disney was hoping for a tent-pole movie, in the Pirates-style and Tonto was going to be the lead character, with his Indian spirits. I hope you're sitting down for this one... the Indian spirits thing involved potential werewolves. If you can believe that, in The Lone Ranger.}
Talk about sh*canning a TV legend? My god, next you'd think Disney would take the biggest bad guy in Iron Man comic book history and make him a homeless... oh, never mind.
Any way, in October of 2011 Gore removed the werewolf element, and that took seemed to take the budget back down to what Disney thought was more reasonable.
Shooting began in Feb of 2012 and Gore had to Pirates it up by giving Depp that bird-head hat. Some reviews out there seem to be suggesting strong similarities, but I can't attest to that.
Then in June of 2012, more budget woes hit and insiders were concerned that the main character (by title) would be nothing more than comical character. Meaning it should have been titled Tonto, The Lone Ranger Years or something like that.
And that's were we are today.
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Oh, that, and Despicable Me 2 more than doubled the box office take in midnight screenings Tues/Wed. Hmm.
Early Reviews of The Lone Ranger
I'm seeing words like pointless, long-running, goes nowhere, Depp's typical, and so forth.
But it has plenty of action sequences. Someone noted there are a lot of train scenes. Emphasize the words A Lot.
On Metacritic, they've averaged out reviews scores to 37/100. Readers have it at 7.5.
Rotten Tomatoes has it at 25% (from 112 reviews) while 73% of the audience liked it.
What I am seeing, I guess, is folks who like Depp are going to see the movie. He as quite the draw. And if folks loved his drunken pirate routine, I'm thinking he won't disappoint with his Tonto role, however he portrays that.
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I'm passing on seeing it in theaters but will probably hit it up when it comes to On Demand. Now whether I pay to rent it or wait till it comes to my pay channels, that's another matter altogether.
Let's see how The Lone Ranger does over the weekend at the box office. It has four days to make some money back.
-Bruce
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