Westerns

It looks like "The Lone Ranger" joins a long line of Westerns that went down as spectacular failures. It's kind of funny since "John Carter" was as much as Western as it was Sci-Fi.

Everyone knows that the most successful film franchise of all time, Star Wars, was basically an old Western dressed up in Sci-Fi. However, most of the time the films are flops.

Here is my short list of successful Westerns

11/9/90 Dances with Wolves
12/22/10 True Grit
12/25/12 Django Unchained
8/7/92 Unforgiven
9/7/07 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
6/28/85 Pale Rider

A longer list of Westerns (or Western/Fantasy) films that pretty much sucked.

6/30/99 Wild Wild West
5/20/94 Maverick
7/29/11 Cowboys & Aliens
5/25/90 Back to the Future Part III
12/24/93 Tombstone
4/2/04 Home on the Range
8/12/88 Young Guns
8/3/90 Young Guns II
11/26/03 The Missing
4/9/04 The Alamo (2004)
2/10/95 The Quick and the Dead

Quote: Pacomartin

It looks like "The Lone Ranger" joins a long line of Westerns that went down as spectacular failures.

Ever think it should have been "The Lone Ranger and the Battle at Doubtful Canyon" or "The Legend of the Lone Ranger".... but not just "The Lone Ranger".

Westerns? Bad Day at Black Rock was classified as a western and as an oriental film, so it depends on your point of view.
Heck one remake of High Noon took place awaiting the arrival of the Interplanetary Shuttle.

It's too bad, westerns have a ready made landscape for villains and heroes, failure and success, drama and comedy, without as much investment in multi-million set design.

I haven't seen the Lone Ranger, and may not even bother, but I rented the animated western of Johnny Depp as a lizard in "Rango", and I enjoyed that. Enough to recommend it, even to adults, whether you have kids or not.

Quote: Pacomartin

5/25/90 Back to the Future Part III

That's a Science Fiction movie. For one thing the plot is about time travel. For another thing, I do not ever watch westerns and I did see that one. Ergo it's not a western, or I wouldn't have seen it.

Quote: Pacomartin

11/9/90 Dances with Wolves
12/22/10 True Grit
12/25/12 Django Unchained
8/7/92 Unforgiven
9/7/07 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
6/28/85 Pale Rider

Hey, where's "Three Amigos" LOL.

...and "Blazing Saddles."

yeah, I know comedy. I'm not even sure 3As made money.

¡Three Amigos! made $39 million on a $25 million production budget. But I am sure it made a fortune subsequently in TV fees and DVD sales.

That and Wayn'es World made Lorne Michaels into a movie producer set for life.

12/19/12 The Guilt Trip
5/21/10 MacGruber
4/25/08 Baby Mama
8/3/07 Hot Rod
4/30/04 Mean Girls
4/19/02 Enigma
10/13/00 The Ladies Man
10/8/99 Superstar
10/2/98 A Night at the Roxbury
4/12/96 Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy
2/2/96 Black Sheep
4/14/95 Stuart Saves His Family
3/31/95 Tommy Boy
7/22/94 Lassie
12/10/93 Wayne's World 2
7/23/93 Coneheads
2/14/92 Wayne's World
12/12/86 Three Amigos

I did sort of limit my list to non-comic Westerns from recent years. IMDB lists 7,289 titles under the Western genre.

What about Cowboys and Aliens?

Outlaw Josey Wales is thought of by many as the
best western ever made. It has everything, I've seen
it a dozen times. It has the Civil War, bandits, Indians,
both sympathetic and not, a gunslinger and a damsel
in distress. Its a masterpiece. Tombstone is also very
good. It brought the word Huckleberry back into the
mainstream, I still hear it today. Val Kilmer is unforgettable
as Doc Holiday and Kurt Russell plays the best Wyatt
Earp I've yet seen, and there have been a lot of them.

Shane is the greatest western story ever told.

That's what the trailer says, anyway.

The movie is worth watching just for the background scenery alone. (you see some of it in the trailer I linked)