Now that The Lone Ranger has finally settled its budget
issues, Disney has given it a prime release date of the 31st of May
2013. Thor 2 will become the first Marvel Studios’ film to open outside of
summer with a new release date of the 15th of November; and the
Phineas & Ferb movie takes over Thor 2’s original release date of the 26th
of July.
Moving Thor 2 away from the summer could be seen as a bit of a risk as the overwhelming majority
of these films have had summer releases. Whilst Thor was a bigger hit
internationally than in North America (earning $267m of its $448m ‘abroad’)
Marvel / Disney will be expecting / hoping that The Avengers makes the
character even more popular and would be expecting significant increases in
gross for the sequel.
Phineas and Ferb is an enormously successful animated show
on Disney XD. A special TV movie, ‘Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension’ had
a 7.6 million viewer average when it aired in America this year. That made it the
most watched cable movie of the year as well as the 3rd highest rated
movie of all time for The Disney Channel. The show is currently in its third
season, with a spin-off show on the way.
Johnny Depp’s cherished Lone Ranger film has been creeping
its way towards a full green light for months now. With Westerns notoriously
poor travellers overseas, in the modern era, the expected $250m - $275m budget
was much higher than Disney was prepared to risk; even on a Johnny Depp staring,
Jerry Bruckheimer produced and Gore Verbinski directed film. Remember Pirate
movies were seen as poison when the same trio brought Pirates of The Caribbean
to $654,264,015 in 2003. The second
and third films earned even more taking just over and just under $1b each.
However the very real, example of Cowboys & Aliens and even True Grit added
weight to the “expensive Westerns are a very big risk’ argument. Only $79.8m of
True Grits impressive $250m total came from outside North America; whilst
Cowboys & Aliens would have hoped to make at least 60% of its total from
the international market, but has only managed 40% and that only amounts to
$66m so far. A change in the way Depp, Verbinski & Bruckheimer (a very expensive
trio) will get paid (allegedly related to profit) has helped trim the budget
down to $215m. Depp will play Tonto, the partner (side-kick) to Armie Hammer’s
Lone Ranger.
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