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    "headline": "Disney’s The Lone Ranger lost up to $190 million, one of the biggest box office bombs of all time",
    "description": "Disney's The Lone Ranger grossed $260.5 million on a budget of up to $250 million in 2013, and the studio expected to lose $160 million to $190 million.",
    "datePublished": "2026-11-14T02:20:00+00:00",
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    "articleSection": "Entertainment",
    "keywords": "Gore Verbinski, Jerry Bruckheimer, Johnny Depp, The Lone Ranger, Walt Disney Pictures",
    "articleBody": "Disney expected to book a loss of $160 million to $190 million on The Lone Ranger, the 2013 Western that put Johnny Depp in Tonto’s face paint and turned a beloved radio and TV hero into one of the biggest box office bombs ever made. More than a decade on, the numbers still read like a warning label for Hollywood blockbusters. The film, directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, reunited much of the team behind the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Depp played Tonto as the aging narrator, with Armie Hammer as lawyer-turned-masked-lawman John Reid. Disney even used the Pirates connection as the main hook in its marketing. The money, by the numbers Production budget: an estimated $225 million to $250 million. Marketing: roughly another $150 million. Worldwide gross: $260.5 million, with $89.3 million from the United States and $171.2 million from other countries. Opening: $29.3 million over the three-day weekend and $48.9 million across the five-day Fourth of July frame, well short of a projected $60 million to $70 million debut. Put the first three lines together and the problem is plain. Add the marketing to the production cost and Disney spent somewhere between $375 million and $400 million to make and sell the film. The worldwide gross covered only about 65 to 69 percent of that outlay, before theaters took their share of every ticket. Trouble started before cameras rolled The project nearly died in 2011. On August 12 that year, Disney halted production over budget worries raised by chief executive Bob Iger and then studio chairman Rich Ross. To rescue it, Verbinski, Bruckheimer, Depp and Hammer each deferred 20 percent of their salaries while the budget was reworked. Filming finally began on March 8, 2012, and spread across six states: Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and California. Bad weather, wildfires and a chickenpox outbreak all hit the shoot. The release date moved repeatedly, from December 2012 to May 2013, and finally to July 3, 2013, a slot freed up when Steven Spielberg’s Robopocalypse, now being remade as a series by Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman, fell behind schedule. A brutal opening weekend The timing could hardly have been worse. Despicable Me 2 opened the same weekend with $142.1 million on a $76 million budget, nearly three times what The Lone Ranger took over five days. Disney called its international start “softer than we would have liked.” Reviews piled on. The film holds a 31 percent approval rating from 250 critics on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Bruckheimer accused critics of “reviewing the budget” rather than the movie, and the cast and director argued that coverage of the production troubles had colored the reaction. Not everyone hated it. Quentin Tarantino named it one of his ten best films of 2013, singling out the climactic train sequence. The film also earned two Academy Award nominations, for Best Visual Effects and Best Makeup and Hairstyling, while picking up a Golden Raspberry for Worst Remake, Rip-off or Sequel. No happy ending on home video Studios often hope later windows will soften a flop. Not this time. Asked in September 2014 whether Disney had clawed back losses on The Lone Ranger and the 2012 flop John Carter, studio president Alan Bergman said: “I’m going to answer that question honestly and tell you no, it didn’t get that much better. We did lose that much money on those movies.” Planned sequels were quietly dropped. Hollywood has been chasing hits and burying misses ever since, as with Charade, the 1963 Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant film that made 4.5 times its cost. More film history lives on our Badiyaa entertainment page. The Lone Ranger runs 149 minutes, and it took more than a full hour of that before Reid first put on the mask. Further reading Wikipedia: The Lone Ranger (2013 film) Image: Dawn Armfield, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. How we work.",
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