Induction Task 1: Why was ‘The Lone Ranger’ considered to be a box-office failure?

Ethan Delaney AS Level Film Studies Induction Task 04/09/2013

 

Task 1 – Why was ‘The Lone Ranger’ considered to be a box-office failure?

In this short induction essay I will be discussing as to why I think the 2013 live action film ‘The Lone Ranger’ was largely considered to be one of The Walt Disney Company’s worst decisions throughout its ninety year history according to a large majority of film critics, audiences and myself.

The film itself is about a Native American warrior named Tonto (played by Johnny Depp) who recounts his earlier memories of helping John Reid AKA The Lone Ranger (played by Armie Hammer) to help bring long needed justice to the old American west by stopping those corrupt with power, rather like many other superhero franchises. This is its first problem, in my opinion, as in today’s society this film can be very hard to relate to due to its subject matter.

Despite Disney’s hopes that the ‘Superhero’ tag would bring in a lot of the public’s hard earned money, it only managed to gain £153.29 million worldwide, now although this may sound like a great success, the film is estimated to have had a production cost of £144.31 million, according to Disney themselves, which means that the film only really gathered around £8.98 million in profit, supposedly. This total is nowhere near the success of previous Disney produced films such as 2010’s Toy Story (created by Pixar Inc. with financial backing from Disney) which had a profit of around £553,635,011.03 with the same budget.

After viewing the film myself, I think it definitely has its moments of greatness (mostly during an action sequence on a runaway train, obviously), however, whilst watching this two and a half hour film, I couldn’t help but feel as if it was way too long for a film based upon quite a bland unambitious script, many people may instantly be put off by a long running time especially those who were intending to bring youngsters.

The film also has a sort of strange off-beat sense to it (such as Johnny Depp’s dead bird on his head) that is evident in its trailers too, which is its first problem as ‘strangeness’ does not shift too many tickets. This has seemed to polarize audiences over the last few months.

The next reason this feature did not achieve its desired box office score is because it failed to even gain an average film rating of 4.8/10 from critics according to Metacritic.com, instead it only managed an aggregated score of 3.7/10 based upon 45 professional reviews. Film reviews are important to many moviegoers as they’re meant to provide a well-balanced point of view which will ultimately make them decide whether or not to view the film. If a film such as this does not attain favourable reviews from most critics then common sense would suggest to the average moviegoer that the feature will not leave them satisfied and will instead rob them of their money and time. Thus, the film has not made too much gross profit, simply due to not enough people having actually viewed the film.

Another reason why this film has flopped is because Disney did not learn from their previous western, Cowboys and Aliens, of which they also had the wise idea to once again throw too much money at any executive producer with an idea. In simple terms, too much was spent on the production of this film which actually caused it to halt in the middle for a few months as a result of Disney’s fears of it skyrocketing over its intended budget, however the bosses at Disney (unfortunately) caved and allowed production to finish way over budget.

 

Induction Task 2: My Favourite Film Of The Summer

Ethan Delaney AS Level Film Studies Induction Task04/09/2013

 

Task 2 – What was my favourite film of the summer and why did I enjoy it?

I think that my favourite film of the summer was Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained of which I viewed sometime in June 2013 on Blu-ray with my dad. I had been waiting a long time to see this film after I first heard about it being in production approximately one year earlier and knew I would have had to have waited about another six months after its UK box office release date of January 18th due to its 18+ BBFC age rating. However, the wait was definitely worth it as it was easily the best film I viewed this summer and in this induction essay I will be explaining as to why I found it to be such a stunning feature.

Firstly, I suppose I should start of by saying that I certainly consider myself to be a Quentin Tarantino fan, having enjoyed every one of his eight films, the Kill Bill films being my favourite, in particular Vol. 2.

Django Unchained is a story of a spaghetti western set in the old American west in the year 1858 just before about a slave (played by Jamie Foxx) who is unchained from his owners by former German dentist turned bounty hunter Dr King Schultz (played by Christoph Waltz). Dr King Schultz then makes a deal to help Django help rescue his wife Broomhilda, also a slave, from ruthless plantation owner Calvin Candie, if in return he helps Dr King to find his next bounty’s during the cold winter.

One of the best things about this (probably over long film) is its screenplay, of which like any other Tarantino film, is full of many great satire lines which can easily entertain the audience throughout its 165 minute running time, along with numerous other superb drama sequences which manage to hold tension, excitement and most importantly attention without the over use of any sort of action. However this being a Tarantino film, there is also a truck load of bloody revenge violence. The film also fortunately has a stellar cast of which not one member, in my opinion is anything less than absolutely believable. My favourite character is arguably the secondary antagonist, the despicably loyal house slave to Mr Candie, Stephen (played by Samuel L. Jackson) who forms an instant hatred towards Django, as unlike himself, Django is a free man. As the senior house slave, Stephen does not like being unable to control Django with his authority like the others and detests the fact that Django is free to ride alongside white men on horses, unlike himself who, despite his loyalty over the years, does not even get to sleep in the ‘Big House’ like Django.

Another one of my favourite things about Django Unchained is its primary antagonist, the Mandingo fighting lover Calvin Candie who is played extremely as well as shockingly well by an actor who is very typical known for basically playing the same version of a nice victimized character in almost every one of his films.