Johnny Depp movie underperformed, critics might be to blame

Jul 10, 2013 10:28 GMT  ·  By
“The Lone Ranger” was savaged by critics, underperformed at the box office in its first week
   “The Lone Ranger” was savaged by critics, underperformed at the box office in its first week

The media is still resounding with the failure of Disney’s most recent release, “The Lone Ranger,” which underperformed in its first week in US theaters. Amidst speculation on how the film will cost the studio a $150 million (€117.2 million) write-down, could it be that the real “culprit” for it is not even the movie?

Made for an impressive budget of $250 million (€195.4 million), the film did not register with US audiences – and had an even worse performance abroad, where westerns tend to be more poorly received.

However, that’s not the worst part: because the film has already been so badly reviewed by critics, this means that word of mouth won’t help it perform better in the following weeks.

Best case scenario, “The Lone Ranger” makes $275 million (€214.9 million) worldwide, but it will still be a flop from a purely financial perspective.

What’s odd though is that commenters online, including here on Softpedia, who have seen it, say that critics pretty much killed its chances at the box office by judging it as something it never aimed to be.

In other words, poor reviews got movie fans to avoid it upon premiere – and will eventually drive the final nail in the film’s coffin, by convincing others not to see it either.

This said, what do you think? Could poor reviews have killed the film’s chances at the box office because they helped build negative hype? Or do you agree with the critics on that “The Lone Ranger” is simply that bad?