Disney's Lone Hope

The Lone Ranger, due out early July, needs to be good, for Disney's sake. While they may not admit as much, Disney's live-action brand has been suffering. Their most recent endeavor Oz: The Great and Powerful garnered some pretty harsh reviews, squeaked out marginal box-office profits, and did not come close to achieving the (expected) same success as Disney's 2010 addition of Alice in Wonderland. By any account, Oz did better by far than last years John Carter, which lost Disney around $80 million and tarnished their studio's season. That followed on the heels of the fourth installment of the Pirated of the Caribbean series and the sequel/reboot Tron: Legacy, both which were good enough to have sequels in the works, but while Tron and Pirates 4 made money at the box-office, they had mixed reviews form critics. The Pirates of the Caribbean movies have gotten worse and worse reviews as the series progressed (most agree that the first Pirates was a very strong film, but that was released ten years ago).


It is into this critical void that Disney launches The Lone Ranger, mostly backed with the star power of Johnny Depp and the team that was behind him for the Pirates franchise. In the game of summer blockbusters, Disney has a lot coming in due to their ownership of Marvel Studios, but Marvel films do not operate under the Disney label. Disney Animation, Pixar, and Muppet Studios all have had success in the last few years, and so it is clear the weakest link in the Disney chain lies in their live-action films. The Lone Ranger might have a chance at mending that, but it will have its challenges. First, they'll need to overcome the controversy around the character of Tonto, both the stereotype that the character presents of historical Native Americans and the possibly racist implications of him being played by a white actor like Johnny Depp. Besides that, The Lone Ranger is essentially going to be a superhero-type origins story, something that has been made formulaic and could easily be done badly or in a way that is not engaging for an audience. Also, the film is very likely to draw comparison to another 19th century bromance adventure:  the Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. I don't know if Tonto and his kemosabe will have similar chemistry to the famous detective duo, but I do think comparisons will be made, and that The Lone Ranger will have to be quite spectacular to show that it is worthy of that comparison.