Disney, the studio behind family-friendly Western The Lone Ranger starring Johnny Depp, is expecting to lose between $160 million and $190 million (£104 million and £124 million) on the film after it was mauled by American critics. The Hollywood studio made the revelation as it published its financial results and recorded a small gain in quarterly profit, 4 per cent, thanks to its theme parks and cable networks, yesterday. The Lone Ranger, pitched as this year's summer blockbuster, opened on 3 July making a dismal $29 million domestically on its opening weekend. It is reported to have cost more than $200 million to make. "There has been a lot said, I know, about the risk of basically high cost, tent pole films and we certainly can attest to that given what happened with Lone Ranger," Disney CEO Bob Iger said. "We still think the tentpole strategy is a good strategy," he said. "That one way to rise above the din and the competition is with a big film, not just big budget, but big story, big cast, big marketing behind it." The Lone Ranger's producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Depp have both blamed bad reviews for the film's poor box office performance. "I think they were reviewing the budget, not reviewing the movie," Bruckheimer told Yahoo. "It's unfortunate, because the movie is a terrific movie, it's a great epic film, it has a lot of humour. It's one of those movies that whatever the critics missed in it this time, they'll review it in a few years and see that they made a mistake." Depp claimed: "I think the reviews were written seven to eight months before we released the film. [The critics] had expectations that it must be a blockbuster. I don't have any expectations of that. I never do." The Independent's film critic Geoffrey Macnab said the film was not as bad as some American critics suggested. He writes: “In fact, this is a perfectly serviceable summer blockbuster. Like most other features that cost $200 million or more to make, it combines visual inventiveness and lavish set-pieces with moments of extreme clunkiness.” Disney's loss for the The Lone Ranger will be included in next quarter's figures. For the quarter that ended in June, operating income at Disney's film studio declined 36 per cent as hit film Iron Man 3 failed to match the spectacular success of last year's The Avengers. Overall, net income for the quarter rose 1 per cent to $1.85 billion. Adjusted earnings-per-share reached $1.03, beating the $1.01 average forecast from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Operating income increased at the company's theme parks and its media networks division, which operates sports channel ESPN. "Overall it was a decent quarter, but nothing to get excited about," Wunderlich Securities analyst Matt Harrigan said. A gain in fees and advertising revenue at ESPN helped lift operating income at Disney's media networks by 8 per cent to $2.3 billion for the quarter. At the parks unit, operating income increased 9 per cent to $689 million as more people visited Disney's theme parks in Florida and California. The interactive gaming unit posted a loss of $58 million. The company is counting on the 18 August release of its Infinity game to turn the unit profitable.
