Here's some quick math to show the scale of the money lost on a bomb the size of Lone Ranger. Let's compare it to last year's modest success Jack Reacher, another big studio action movie with a major star in a leading role.

Jack Reacher: 

$60m budget 

$15m opening weekend

Lone Ranger:

$250m budget

$29m opening weekend

Lone Ranger made a little over twice Jack Reacher's opening on a budget 3.6x larger.

That means that a movie of Lone Ranger's scale could've grossed the entire budget of the major star-driven Jack Reacher in one single weekend and still been a colossal disaster, particularly in the face of films like The Avengers which made $207m in its opening weekend - that's 80% of Lone Ranger's entire budget recouped in three days.

And at a budget of about $11,000 dollars, one would have to make 22,727 Paranormal Activities to add to one Lone Ranger.


The magnitude of tentpole action films is simply staggering, isn't it?