Lone Ranger movie caught in budgetary cliffhanger

By Joe Southern
jsouthern@hcnonline.com
Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear when a masked man on a white horse accompanied by an Indian companion were the most exciting heroes in pop culture.
Established well before the days of super humans in spandex, The Lone Ranger galloped across the 1940s and ’50s as the ultimate he-man hero of a now aged baby boomer generation. For 78 years the Lone Ranger and Tonto have been righting wrongs and saving the day as one of the most powerful entertainment and marketing creations in America’s 20th century history.
Long since left in a cloud of dust by spacemen and macho men in cowls and tights, the Lone Ranger has made occasional leaps into our collective consciousness, just enough to give baby boomers a sense of nostalgia. They rallied for actor Clayton Moore in his battle to wear the mask during personal appearances. They stayed away from the movie theaters in droves when “The Legend of the Lone Ranger” came out and fell flat on its face.
Occasional comic books, toys and keepsakes were all that kept our intrepid hero visible for 20 years until about 10 years ago when it was announced that a major motion picture was going to be made by Sony. The WB had also green-lighted a pilot for a new Lone Ranger television show. In 2003 the pilot, then turned into a made for TV movie, aired and established itself as the “Ishtar” of TV Westerns. The series was thankfully never made.
The movie, however, kept plodding along through development hell at Sony, finally succumbing in 2007. A few months later in 2008, super producer Jerry Bruckheimer announced he wanted a shot at it. A major announcement was made by Disney Studios that Bruckheimer would again pair up with his “Pirates of the Caribbean” star Johnny Depp in a remake of the masked man. Only this time Depp would star as Tonto and the movie would focus on that character.
For the next two years the project lingered on. A script was written by the powerhouse duo of Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, who gave us such wonderful stories as the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, “Shrek”, the two recent Zorro movies, the National Treasure films, “Aladdin”, “The Road to El Dorado” and many more. That script was rejected by Disney and handed over to Justin Haythe for a rewrite.
While Haythe sank his teeth into it, rumors went wild as to who would star as the Lone Ranger and who would sit in the director’s chair. Depp stayed busy doing Alice in Wonderland, Public Enemy and another Pirates movie with Bruckheimer. The producer extraordinaire, however, plowed into his popular television shows and gave us lukewarm films such as “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”
Finally, a couple months ago the movie moved into production. Former Pirates director Gore Verbinski hired on to direct. Armie Hammer won the right to wear the mask and an all-star cast began to populate the growing list of characters. Set construction began in southwest New Mexico and casting for extras was announced. It was given a Dec. 21, 2012, release date.
Just as soon as the light of day finally shone on this project, Disney CEO Robert Iger thrust it back into darkness over budgetary concerns. With a reported $250 million budget and a lackluster performance record of modern-day Westerns and Bruckheimer’s own silver screen letdowns, Disney was not ready to play high-stakes poker with an uncertain economy and fickle moviegoers.
Following a week-long dollar détente and the willingness of Depp and Bruckheimer to cut their own fees, the director and producer were unwilling to trim their vision for the film. The game of brinkmanship ended with the purse strings pulled and the project thrust back into the pits of development hell. It’s just as well, as the movie reportedly contained Indian mysticism and werewolves. (Western werewolves? Oh, brother!)
While I remain hopeful that a Lone Ranger movie will be made and am frustrated at the current turn of events, I must applaud Iger and Disney for their financial frugalness. (Now, if we can just get our elected officials to learn from that lesson, maybe we can get this country back on track.)
In the meantime, Disney and Marvel will continue to pump out spandex-hero blockbusters while Bruckheimer and Depp circle the wagons and figure out a way to make the Lone Ranger ride again.

Meet Zig and Dave, my new best friends

I want you to meet a couple of good friends of mine. Perhaps you’ve heard of them or know them yourself. They are Zig Ziglar and Dave Ramsey.
No, I have never met either one. I highly doubt either of them knows I exist. That isn’t important. What is important is what they have done in my life and what they can do for you. These two gentlemen are turning my life around. If you don’t know these men, let me introduce you.
Ziglar is the world’s foremost motivational speaker. His books, recordings and lectures have reached millions of people. He is a champion of positive thinking. He preaches success, motivation, achievement and positive self-image.
Ramsey is a financial guru who uses his daily radio program, books, recordings, lectures and frequent television appearances to teach people to get out of debt and build wealth.
These men are world-changers and they do it the same way. They use proven, time-tested, biblical principles to change attitudes and behaviors of people. They change hearts, challenge minds and inspire the spirits of those whose lives have become unmanageable.
My life was unmanageable. For most of the last seven years I have been toiling in the miserable pit that is my mind. The result of my severe depression has been a succession of failures, poverty and wasted time and talent.
My last two jobs came with hour-long commutes. I began listening to audio books in my car. I caught up on a lot of reading and it helped pass the time. I finally listened to Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” That set me on a path of self-help and self-discovery. From there I latched onto recordings by Ramsey and Ziglar.
Those guys – Ziglar in particular – have done more for me in a couple of months than years of medication and counseling. I’m setting goals, feeling motivated and desiring to make a difference in the lives of others.
As Ziglar says and Ramsey often repeats, “You can get what you want when you help enough people get what they want.” Delaying gratification, saving money, giving of your time and resources and following a strategy of achieving your goals through hard work will result in a wealthy, successful and positive life.
Ramsey is fond of saying that “first you must live like no one else so that later you can LIVE like no one else”. This is a pay-to-play world. You get out of it what you put into it. If you don’t make a contribution up front you won’t get to collect at the end. If you think it’s OK to slack off because the government will take care of you, you can bet that the government will take care of you alright.
Social Security is an oxymoron. It doesn’t work. Stimulus funds didn’t boost the economy; they just sank us deeper in debt. They made us more dependent on the government. The best thing the government can do to boost the economy is get out of the way. It needs to stop punishing success with higher taxes and allow those who are successful to create and provide jobs for those who need them. We’re better off having the entrepreneurs of the nation paying the employed masses than having their profits siphoned off by the government so it can give the money to those who don’t work.
Conventional wisdom over the years is that we grow our economy by spending what we earn. It supposedly spreads the wealth. I disagree. We grow our economy by selling, not buying. Americans are spending their money on foreign goods. Rather than buying from Japan and China, we should be selling to them. We should be creating and manufacturing products and exporting them. You employ more people and create more wealth that way than you do by buying things that come primarily from overseas. Our money can’t work for us if it’s in a bank in Hong Kong.
As the saying goes, charity begins at home. The more we give the more we help ourselves. When you help others get what they want/need, you will get what you want/need (sound familiar?). Government takes before it gives and it gives (spends) more than it takes. That’s why government is growing and our debt is increasing.
I’m no economist. I’m just a guy coming out of depression with the help of a couple of good friends. Would you like to meet them?

I've gone over to the digital side

Ta-i Kemosabe, I’m back!
This is the first of my columns since 2005 that will not appear in print. I have gone over to the digital side. If this were Star Wars and journalism the Force, I would be serving on the Death Star. This, however, isn’t Star Wars and print journalism is no longer the force it used to be.
Working for print editions of newspapers these days is more like riding on the back of a dinosaur. It may have a loud roar, but extinction is coming. Stick a bone in it; it’s done. It died about five years ago, but will take another decade or so to bleed out.
I’m one of those throwbacks who enjoys the feeling of a paper in my hands and the smell of ink on my fingers. With my life’s work boiling down to a digital fingerprint, I have to accept the fact that reporting no longer happens in cycles, but is a continuous stream of ever-changing data that we now package as “content”.
I loved being a reporter. Now I am a “content provider” which is the same thing in the realm of cyberspace. Most of what I learned about journalism in college is obsolete. I’m using tools and skills that could not have been imagined back in 1980-something.
As much as things change, the more they stay the same. The Internet may have signaled doom for newspapers, but it cannot touch quality journalism. People will always want and need well-written stories about news events and things they are interested in.
With the exception of bloggers and tweeters who think they can write, most of the stuff that passes for legitimate news is still written by professional journalists and given away online by their employers. Trust me, that is a model that cannot sustain itself much longer. Eventually we humble journalists will want to eat, buy clothes, own homes and other things that we frequently report about. That being the case, you will eventually have to pay for your news. (You don’t know the power of the digital side!)
There is something of a paradox now that I’m working online. It used to be that we were limited by space and had to write stories to fit a certain length. Online we can write to our heart’s content, but readership habits have limited news reading to a headline or less. If you’ve actually read this far, I am truly impressed. You’re a rare bird.
Long gone are the days when you came home to an evening paper and leisurely read it while supper was cooking. That became a quick scan of the paper over breakfast on the run. Now it’s a quick browse online from the desk at work or on your smart phone when you have a down minute or two. If it doesn’t have a shocking headline, a shocking photo and/or the right tags on it, no one will bother to look at it.
Back in the day, a headline might read “School board to re-evaluate superintendent’s contract”. Today that headline would read “Superintendent in hot seat” or “School board barking mad at top dog”. If the headline works, you will click on it and be taken to a story where you expect to see a picture or read about school board members foaming at the mouth, racing around on all fours ready to pounce on the poor, helpless superintendent. If that isn’t there, you’ll be lucky to find anyone who reads three paragraphs into a story about the school board doing the annual performance review of the district’s top administrator.
In other civilized countries of the world, people actually care about how their local school superintendent is performing his duties and the story would be worthy of the front page … er, make that homepage. In the good ol’ U.S. of A., if the superintendent isn’t having an affair, embezzling funds or storing kiddie porn on his computer, people don’t seem to care what he’s doing or how well his performance is.
The same thing goes for most any elected official. Incumbents are usually a lock on Election Day unless they are embroiled in some kind of scandal. Depending on the nature and timing of the scandal, they could be out on their can or re-elected by a wide margin.
The thing is, if it were not for journalists, the average person wouldn’t know about the scandal or the straight-laced duty performance.
All that being said, I’m glad to be back and to still be employed doing what I like. I hope you will stay with me on this grand adventure into cyberspace and beyond.