Well, looks like the cry babies are out in force for this one. With Disney set to lose $190 million from the movie's failure, Johnny Depp, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and even Armie Hammer are laying the blame squarely at the feet of the critics' bad reviews.
"I think the reviews were written seven to eight months before we released the film. I think the reviews were written when they heard Gore (Verbinski) and Jerry (Bruckheimer) and me were going to do 'The Lone Ranger.'" (Depp)
"I think they were reviewing the budget, not reviewing the movie. The audience doesn't care what the budget is- they pay the same amount if it costs a dollar or 20 million dollars...they'll review it in a few years and see that they made a mistake." (Bruckheimer)
"This is the thing with American critics: they've been gunning for our movie since it was shut down the first time. That's when most of the critics wrote their initial reviews. They tried to do the same thing with 'World War Z'- it didn't work, the movie was successful. Instead they decided to slit the jugular of our movie." (Hammer)
Sounds like a lot of whining to me. Crowds don't pay attention to reviews, for the most part, especially for blockbusters. If they did, would Grown-Ups 2 have just passed $100 million? And I don't know what Hammer's talking about, but the reviews for World War Z weren't nearly as dismal as the ones for The Lone Ranger (which sits at 28% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes versus WWZ's 67%). If they hated it because of its production problems, wouldn't they have slaughtered that movie in the same way? When a movie gets horrible reviews AND it bombs at the box office (clearly word of mouth didn't save it)- don't you have to conclude that the reason might be because you made a shitty movie? Man up, guys.
