What Can Hollywood Learn from Flops like The Lone Ranger (and White House Down and John Carter and After Earth and Jack the Giant Slayer and Battleship)?

The Lone Ranger has officially been declared a box office flop. The reboot of the 1930s radio series and 1950s TV series was made for a whopping $215 million and on opening weekend grossed a disappointing $49 million (plus an extra $24 million coming from foreign box office). That's a depressingly low number for an action movie directed by Pirates of the Caribbean helmer Gore Verbinski and starring his frequent leading man Johnny Depp.

Even with Depp as the star $215 million is too large a number for a film based on a property with little recognition these days. Compare The Lone Ranger to Oz: The Great and Powerful. That fantasy film also had a $215 mil price tag. But it grossed over $490 mil worldwide. Why is that?

The Wizard of Oz still has name recognition because it airs on TV a few times a year, many of its scenes have become iconic and it has an instantly recognizable soundtrack (if you've never heard of at least Over the Rainbow, then you're crazy and I will not talk to you). Not only that but Oz: The Great and Powerful has a big star cast: quintessential cool-girl Mila Kunis, ironic douchebag James Franco and legitimately respected actresses Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams. All of those things combined made O:TGAP a huge hit.

The Lone Ranger is not a known property. Maybe it has recognition for people over 45 but they're not the ones to rush out and see a movie in its opening weeks. As for stars, Johnny Depp is there but his star is waning. His complete physical transformations into his characters are more of a punchline than they are exciting. And after he hit his peak in 2007 with Sweeney Todd, his career took a creative nosedive with films like Alice in Wonderland and Dark Shadows.

Aside from Depp, the movie stars Armie Hammer. Okay, he's handsome in a yacht-owner kind of way (though that stupid mask hides his pretty-boy face). He was pretty good in The Social Network and even Mirror, Mirror. But he is not yet a box office star like Mila Kunis. The Lone Ranger even had Helena Bonham Carter to pull in audiences but the marketing hardly used her in the ads (I mean, she's no Robert Downey Jr but she did do 4 Harry Potter films, a handful of Tim Burton hits and she has 2 Oscar nominations).

The problem here is that The Lone Ranger was a risk and the studios didn't know it. But that's an unsolvable problem. Every movie in some ways is a risk. But the bigger problem is that history has been repeating itself over and over again and Hollywood still isn't catching on. The studios are failing to see the forest for the trees.

White House Down (budget: $150 million, worldwide total: $68 million) was the 2nd movie this year about the White House being attacked after Olympus Has Fallen. It technically had bigger stars than Olympus Has Fallen: Jamie Foxx was just in the Oscar-winning hit Django Unchained and Channing Tatum is coming off the hattrick of Magic Mike, The Vow and 21 Jump Street. All four of those 2012 films had budgets of $100 million or less. Both Magic Mike and Django were unique, well-made and award-winning films. The Vow was a romantic drama released on Valentine's Day weekend and starring likability queen Rachel McAdams. 21 Jump Street was an R-rated comedy based off a well-known 80s TV show.  Putting Foxx and Tatum in a generic-looking, overpriced, overlong action movie is just a recipe for undoing their goodwill with audiences.

My theory: audiences are having big-budget fatigue. When every year sees the release of a handful of big budget action movies (which usually cost over $150 mil and run over 2 hours), they all start to blend together. Especially if they star no-name actors like Nicholas Hoult (star of flop Jack the Giant Slayer), Taylor Kitsch (star of flops Battleship and John Carter, based on dubious properties: a board game and a novel from 1912) or Armie Hammer. After Earth is another example of an overpriced movie and one that stars a guy nobody really likes anymore and his non-ironic douchebag son.

Even movies that fall in between mediocre and above average can still make a lot of money. Take a look at The Great Gatsby: a smallish budget of $105 mil, features superstar Leonardo DiCaprio with somewhat well-known actors Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan, based on a well-known and relevant book, and directed by someone with a recognizable style. The Great Gatsby's worldwide total: $321 million and that's with average reviews.

Fast & Furious 6 has emerged as one of the biggest hits of the summer season, grossing a huge worldwide total of $695 million off a $160 million budget. Iron Man 3 (budget: $200 million, worldwide total: $1.2 billion) and Man of Steel (budget: $225 million, worldwide total: $586 million) both are doing really well. But these successes are not a surprise. All three have name stars (though the big names aren't in the lead role in MOS's case) and are reboots/sequels to well-known properties. One unexpected hit is Now You See Me, which grossed about $170 million off a $75 million budget because of the large cast (including Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Michael Caine and Melanie Laurent) and a cool concept (magicians who rob banks!).

 The Lone Ranger, White House Down, Jack the Giant Slayer, After Earth, John Carter and Battleship all had potential to be hits (and some even had the potential to be, you know, good) if they had smaller budgets. Small budgets force the filmmakers to rely on old-school ways of pulling in audiences: good acting and strong scripts. As much as audiences like eye-popping visuals and innovative use of IMAX, 3D and IMAX 3D, when a movie is bad, it's bad.

I doubt the failure of The Lone Ranger will be the straw that broke the camel's back. It seems with each new flop, the question isn't "how can we fix this broken business model?" but "what other old-school property can we remake?". It's like they keep digging for gold in the same spot because one guy struck it rich one time even though there's a huge pile gold untouched somewhere else.

**All budgets and box office totals are taken from Box Office Mojo.