10 Movies That Cost Twice As Much As They Needed To

The team of director Gore Verbinski, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, star Johnny Depp and writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio had already shown with the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels that increased budgets don't result in better movies, but Disney still agreed to hand the team $250m to make The Lone Ranger.

Under absolutely no circumstances, ever, should a Western cost a quarter of a billion dollars. Verbinski's excesses do result in a couple of barnstorming set-pieces, but at no point does The Lone Ranger offer enough to convince that it was worth such a huge investment. When the idea for the movie was first floated in 2002, the budget was projected at $70m, which is a much more realistic and manageable number.

For the price of The Lone Ranger you could make both Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight and still have more than $100m to spare, fund both The Magnificent Seven and its big-budget remake twice over, or shoot seventeen versions of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven at the same time and still have change in your pocket.