2. Disney Had Too Much Faith In It
Despite buying up our childhood icons for ludicrous sums of money, Disney is an incredibly pragmatic company. It took a bit of a gamble on the Avengers films but it had been a well established property for decades and it paid off in spades with The Avengers grossing over a billion dollars. It's pumping a lot of money into Star Wars but that's a guaranteed money-spinner. And then there was The Lone Ranger. It's something of a well known pop culture element among older people but it's pretty much faded into complete obscurity in recent years as far as younger audiences are concerned. If you asked a teenager "Who's Tonto?", their reply would probably either be "The dog from The Wizard Of Oz" or a stream of profanity. Also, the last cinematic adaptation of The Lone Ranger was thirty-two years ago and only grossed two thirds of its budget, and a 2003 TV movie based on it was a failure as well. The Lone Ranger's relative obscurity with young people (the film's main demographic) and a history of failed adaptations should have been a warning sign for Disney to err on the side of caution and not go crashing in with such wild abandon, assuming that it would be a runaway success. But the biggest reason for the film's financial woes is an extension of how much faith Disney put into it...