WHAT WENT WRONG - The Lone Ranger

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

Incredibly offensive casting, supernatural coyotes, a tragic on-set death, and a $190M+ loss for Disney. This week Chris & Lizzie learn why cannibalism plays a surprising role in this film, what Johnny Depp really said when he found himself on the wrong side of history, and how the filmmakers pulled off some incredible set pieces that couldn't save the movie. Go Ad-Free - Join Our Patreon!Check Out Our Merch!Follow Us on Instagram!What Movie's Next? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, and welcome back for the season finale of your favorite podcast, What Went Wrong? Lizzie, aside from our amazing episode that's coming up, we have a few announcements. Yes, we do. We're going to take a quick break, and we will be coming back with a season four premiere, Bigga and Beta, on February 20th, 203. That's right. Six days for you to get over the fact that your Valentine's Day sucked because our podcast is coming back, February 20th, and it's coming back. with a Patreon. That's right.

We are very excited about this. We've gotten a lot of recommendations from you all. We've had a shockingly large number of people asking us if they can donate to a Patreon. And the answer is finally yes. So a couple of things we will be offering. We'll be offering one video of a select episode recording once a month. We've got bonus episodes coming on topical issues and interviews with below the line individuals working in the film industry.

These are the people that truly make movies happen, who you literally never hear from. And we try to talk about a lot in our podcast. Again, these bonus episodes will be coming once a month. That's right. And when Chris says topical issues, that means things related to the film industry. We are not talking about anything else. Nothing outside the film industry. And beyond that, we're going to provide other opportunities for Friends of the Pod to be engaged,

including voting potentially on upcoming movies to cover and much, much more. We're also looking into offering merchandise and figuring out the most cost-efficient way to do that in order to maximize our profits and ensure that you can afford as little as possible. Lizzie, anything else? No, that about covers it. But we're very, very excited. Thank you all for sticking with us. And tell your friends in the interim, really bring us back with a bang for season four.

And with that, Chris, would you like to hear a lone ranger joke? Sure. I'm going to let Army Hammer tell the joke on the tonight show with Jay Leno. Does everybody want to hear a lone ranger? He's out riding one night, ranging, whatever it is that he does. Loaning. Loaning. And all of a sudden he gets taken over by a band of natives.

And they take him and they say, all right, white man, we're going to kill you on the full moon in three days. He's totally nervous. And he looks at one of the guys, he goes, you're going to kill me? He goes, yep, in three days. He goes, well, do I get a last request? And I goes, no, he goes, can I just talk to my horse? The guy looks and he goes, or you can talk to a horse. He grabs the horse's head and whispers real close.

And he goes, slaps the horse on the ass. The horse takes off running away. Sure enough, comes back a couple hours later with a beautiful brunette on it. Naked. Hair flowing in the wind. She brings them back, stuck right in front of his tent. All the Indians are just like, eh, that's a good trick. Sure, you can, yeah, you, we'll just kill you later.

You go ahead. So she goes in. Next day they say, all right, two days, we're going to kill you. He goes, can I talk to my horse again? They kind of chuckle a little bit and they go, yeah, yeah, let him talk to the horse. So suddenly bring the horse over, he whispers in the horse's ear, slaps it on the ass, horse runs away, comes back to that night with a beautiful redhead. Buck naked on him, riding in on the horse, comes in, stops right in front of this tent, hops in, goes in his tent, they spend the night.

Next morning they say, all right, tonight's night, we're going to kill you. He goes, can I please talk to my horse one more time? They go, did you not tired? He goes, just one more time. And I go, all right, fine. They bring him a horse. He grabs a horse, pulls it right in his face and goes, for the last time, you stupid animal, I said, bring me a posse. Isn't that what you think of when you think of Lone Ranger?

So that was told, I'm guessing, as publicity for this movie, which is a Disney movie on national television. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Noted Cannibal Army Hammer. That's correct. Oh my God I have a lot of thoughts about this movie I'd never seen it before to those Yes, we are covering the Lone Ranger Lizzie

I don't want to step on any of this introduction for you But I am chomping or as it should be champing at the bit Like Silver himself to talk about this movie I had never seen it before I had only heard things about it And I have a whole bunch of confused mixed up thoughts But I don't want to get in the way of You and Army Hammer both

because that, when I saw that I was like, that really encapsulates for me most of what went wrong, I think, on this movie. Because, yeah, it's a Disney movie. It is ostensibly supposed to mostly be for children. It completely misses

that boat, which we will get into. It is very violent. And Army Hammer, try as he might, while I will say this, Listen, cannibalism and alleged sexual assaults aside, I do think he's a good actor. He's not good in this. He's not believable at all as like a good leading man, probably because he's a cannibal,

alleged sexual assaulter. But, you know, this is just, it's weird. Beginning to end, it's really weird. And that's not even getting to the biggest and most problematic part of this movie. But first things first, you can't even stream this on Disney Plus for obvious. Johnny Depp. It's on Disney Astrodark. Yeah.

Cannibal the cannibal Army Hammer reasons. They have shelved it. So you have to rent it, but it's so long and so boring that I only made it through the first two hours and my rental window expired. Oh my God, you had to rent it twice.

That's the classic what went wrong. We should do a what went wrong Hall of Fame, the double rentals. I've had a couple of those before, too. I mean, listen, you'll be happy to know that at least I'm 90, I'm not sure that my money did not go to Johnny Depp or Army Hammer because they're still paying Disney back for this. Yeah.

I saw the Bruckheimer. I was like, yeah, Jerry Bruckheimer, you know, who's produced a lot of Michael Bay's stuff. Like that makes sense. Gore Vibinsky, obviously Pirates of the Caribbean, et cetera. Like that kind of makes sense. And then you see the Disney logo and you're like, huh, okay. And then they get into the movie and pretty quickly it's very violent. Yes.

There's a lot of reference to obviously, like, a saloon where there's a madame and a whorehouse. And then it totally just glosses over loads of racism. Oh, yeah. We'll get to that. It feels like it could have been rated R, weirdly. Yes. But on the other hand, it's easy to, this is going to be an example. This is an easy movie to tear apart because so much is very obviously wrong.

Yes. But, oh my God, the production design, the cinematography, the VFX, the stunt work, all of the extras, and like, all-star cast of character actors. Well, we're, let's get into it. Let's get into it. All right. So, sorry. I just wanted to really quickly just acknowledge it's not all bad. It's not all bad at all.

There's a lot of bad to this, and there's one big glaring bad, which we will get to very quickly. But, no, there's some incredible things about this that I am excited to. to talk about some of which came at the expense of the safety of the cast and crew. So released July 3rd, 2013. The Lone Ranger was directed by Gore Vribinski, as Chris said. It was written by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, and then written again by Justin Hath. You will notice in the credits that it is story by Ted and Terry get top billing and then screenplay by it goes boop-a-boop and Justin pops up to the top and he gets top billing there, even though all three are credited for both. There's a reason for that.

starring Army Hammer as John Reed, aka the Lone Ranger, Ruth Wilson as Rebecca Reed, his sister-in-law slash lady. He really grossly kisses at the end. She kisses him on the horse. I hated it. I was like, Ruth, don't do that. James Badgedale as John's much more interesting brother. Love, love James Badgell.

He's great. He's always so good when he comes in. He's always underused and they ice him early in these movies. And I just, I believe in you so much, James Badstale. Anyway, please continue. Helena Bonham Carter as the one-legged madam that Chris mentioned. She shows up for like five minutes. No idea why she's there.

Cool character. Wish we got more of her. Fun leg. We'll get into it. Tom Wilkinson as an evil rich man. Always a good bad guy. Always, I love him. Barry Pepper.

Yes. As Fuller, Barry, get a new agent. This is not the first time. What went wrong, a lump? Barry Pepper. I know. Poor Barry, who I love. He's so good.

And he also got nothing to do. And I think he's a really good actor. He is. And he's fun for the like 10 minutes he's in this. But it's really strange. He doesn't show up until like the last third of the movie. I thought I missed him earlier in the movie. It's really weird.

Also way too few but still excellent native actors like Saganon Grant and one of my all-time favorites, Gil Birmingham. Gil Birmingham. He doesn't get a line, but is amazing. He does get a couple lines. And I will say like... Oh, I just felt like he barely got a line. He got like three. But even the three lines that he got to say were so much more elevated.

And I was like, Gil, what are you doing in here? Like, get out of here. It was, yeah. And then also William Fickner, who's like my favorite character actor of all time as Cavendish the bad guy. Yeah. Stephen Root shows up towards the end. Love Stephen Root. There's a lot of people in this.

Damon Harriman shows up, has like one line. And then last- Isn't it Earl W. Brown plays like one of the sheriff rangers in the very beginning from Deadwood. He's like, yeah, he's there for, again, underuse. He's a great actor. James Frayne of True Blood and I think the Tudors. He also has no lines and gets killed. I was like, okay. And then last but very much not least, the very, very not Native American Johnny Depp as Tonto. So that's the big yikes. Let's just get it out of the way right at the top. This movie is riddled with some really bonkers problems that we're going to get into.

from script all the way through post-production. But this makes it like nearly impossible to watch. It is so... Yes. Oh, my God. It's what it is. And it's really bad. And it feels disrespectful in the moment. It feels like he's doing a bit.

And it's like the character's not... The character's given its tragic backstory. And yet he's... It's played off as a joke for most of the movie. It's really weird. Especially weird, given that they were trying to position this as like, a re-telling, sorry, my brain just collapsed trying to think about Johnny Depp playing Tonto, a retelling of the lone ranger that placed Tonto more in the forefront and was supposed to be

more focused on him. That, of course, is not actually what happens at all. It's really weird. You could see the seeds of it in that, I mean, it feels like they're trying to do a double origin movie, which is really hard, and I don't think possible. But I liked the idea of the character. of like, let's personify this idea of a really messed up deal gone wrong where this, you know, native character is screwed by the way.

I mean, I'm just saying, like, I feel like if you took a great Native American actor and put him in that role, oh, it would have made a big difference. It would have been such, made such a difference. Yeah. Because this is just awful what it is right now. Yeah, it makes it absolutely impossible to watch. And we are going to talk about this a decent amount in the episode because, yeah, it is worse than I thought it was going to be.

And to be clear, he is also very much pitched and explained in this movie as a full-blooded Comanchee. Yeah. In the flashbacks, I'm fairly certain that is a Native American boy playing young Johnny Depp. Like, there's no getting around it. And there's a very clear reason that the makeup department, which, by the way, who I think did a great job with their makeup, but like Johnny Depp's makeup is intended, that is blackface, it is obscured. the fact that he's a white man playing a Native American. And for anybody who's like, oh, but it's like Jack Sparrow, no, it's not. It's completely different.

Well, that's what the producers thought. It's like Jack Sparrow. All right. So I want to give a brief history of the Lone Ranger before we get into the rest of this, because it turns out this franchise is kind of completely fucked. The Lone Ranger began as a radio show in 1933, which you'll notice is also when the movie starts as a little nod to when it started airing. Out of WXYZ, created by Frank Stryker and or George W. Trendle, that was a bit weird.

There were sort of different things, different places. They also created the Green Hornet. That's a character who is actually related to the Lone Ranger. And you can tell they were hoping to make a spinoff from this as well. Didn't happen. The basic story is pretty close to what you saw on screen. The Lone Ranger, John Reed, is the only survivor of an ambush that also kills his older brother, James Badgedale here. He's found and rescued by Tonto, and he vows to seek out Cavendish, the man who did it, and restore justice with the help of Tonto.

By the way, I spent a long time trying to find out if there was any origin for Kemosabi that, just for anyone who doesn't know, Kemosabi is what Tonto has historically referred to the Lone Ranger as in this movie. They say that it means wrong brother. That does not show up anywhere else as being what it means. trusty scout is much more common. However, the word itself has very shifty origins. Nobody can really agree on what it means, nor can they fully agree if it has origins in an actual native word, or in the boys summer camp Frank Stryker went to as a kid. So that is what we're dealing with across the board with this franchise. Also, Wendigo used in the movie, not a Comanchee Native American word. No, and we're going to get to that as well, because that has a whole other part of this.

Great. The radio show was a massive hit and was then broadcast nationwide. Now, from 1949 to 1957, the Lone Ranger aired as a TV series starring Clayton Moore as John Reed and Canadian Mohawk actor Jay Silverheels as Tonto. There are obviously problematic and heavily stereotypical elements to Tonto's character in this TV show, but got a call out. Even in 1949, he was played by an indigenous actor. Mm-hmm. This movie came out in 2013. Yep.

All right, so there's some weird cartoon adaptations and two features with Clayton and Jay, but then in 1981, we get our first truly cursed feature adaptation. This is The Legend of the Lone Ranger. Chris, do you know anything about this? Nothing. Okay, it's incredible. It could honestly maybe be its own episode, but I'm just going to quickly get into it here. So it's set up as a big budget blockbuster.

It stars first and last time actor, Clinton Spillsbury, who was apparently so bad, all of his lines were dubbed over in post. Wow. Allegedly also may have been horrible to work with, but that was kind of iffy. But all of that has been pretty heavily overshadowed by a very wacky court case. So remember Clayton Moore, the TV Lone Ranger? Well, he's in his mid-60s now, but he's still touring the country as the Lone Ranger. And as far as he's concerned, there is one kimosabi.

It's him. So this actually ends up going to court because he will not stop appearing as the Lone Ranger and the movie is gearing up to launch a whole new franchise with a whole new face. Apparently, he showed up with the mask on and had to be asked to remove it in court. It's more drama than this movie. It's incredible. The studio won this battle technically, but more kind of won the court of public opinion. He also kept touring around the country, but now with wraparound sunglasses instead of the masks.

Very crafty. Love him. So obviously it would have been absurd to have a 64-year-old star reboot this franchise. But allegedly, Moore offered to do a Mask of Zorro-style handoff where he would appear as the Lone Ranger. Yes. And then pass the mask on to the new star. They said no, and their movie tanked. So I think the first lesson we can learn here is the Lone Ranger is built.

almost entirely on nostalgia. It's not an amazing story. It does not have multifaceted characters, so you either need to lean into the nostalgia factor or you need to get out of there. It doesn't work. Now, in 2002, Columbia Pictures ponies up the rights to the lone ranger with the plans to make it

a Mask of Zorro-esque reimagining of the story. That makes sense. Mask of Zorro was late 90s, I think 98. It was a huge hit. It's also great. They even want to cast Tonto as a woman, so it can be all sexy and stuff. Which, that was when I was watching this, I was like Amber Midthunder from Prey, the new Predator movie. Oh.

See that with her now. Yeah, maybe don't touch this franchise again. Yeah, just stay away. You're fine. Leave her alone. So the budget is set at roughly $70 million with David and Janet Peoples, writers of 12 monkeys, set to write it. But by 2005, Columbia has put the movie in turnaround, which, Chris, you always explain this, want to explain it very quickly? So the studio has decided they don't want to make the movie, which means they're putting it

into turnaround. So another studio could take the movie and develop it for themselves, but they have to buy all of the money that has been put up against the movie so far. So if, let's say, they've paid $500,000, a million dollars, $2 million, in development money to fund this so far through test shoots or drafts of a script, etc. The studio that is seeking to purchase the movie has to pay them all of that sunk cost in order to take it off their hands, which is why so often if a movie falls apart

at a studio, that can be the death net of the movie, even if another studio might be interested. Because it's expensive to pay for what they've already done. You're starting from a negative number then as the new studio coming in. But not too expensive for Jerry Bruchheimer. Jerry Brooks. Who in 2007 swoops in and takes the project to Disney. Now, as far as I can tell, they are pretty much starting from scratch at this point. Bruchheimer of the Lone Ranger said, to me, he's a very heroic character.

You see all these wonderful marble characters that have been around forever and the Lone Ranger has been around forever and fights evil too. audiences like that. Mm-hmm. Okay. Mm-hmm. Now, Chris, you've already mentioned this movie once so far, but what had Jerry Bruckheimer produced quite recently? Pirates of the Caribbean.

Correct. And around the same time, Bruchheimer brings on Pirates of the Caribbean scribes Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio to write the Lone Ranger. Now, according to Gore Vibinsky, it was Ted and Terry's idea. And they pitched it to Brockheimer to begin with. I didn't really see that anywhere else, but that did come up in a couple of his interviews. That makes sense because, Chris, do you know what else these guys have written? No, I don't know their credits.

Their credits are insane. Aladdin, Shrek, the Mask of Sorrow. Oh, interesting. And then, of course, Pirates of the Caribbean. It's a great, great credits. Oh, they're amazing. Super talented. I think losing them was a massive blow to this movie.

The Curse of the Black Pearl, parts of the Caribbean, made $654 million worldwide. So just keep that in mind. Now, Elliot and Rossio are very interesting and clearly very talented duo. There were also some reports that they enjoy rewriting their scripts a little bit while on set, based on the way that they see some actors performing their roles. Obviously, with their track record, this has worked, but it's done so by yielding. some pretty wacky and weird performances like Johnny Depp in Pirates.

Now, this was fun. I'm sure this will be its own episode, but when executives first saw Daly's of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, they screeched because they said they had a, quote, gay drunk lead. It was great. It was good.

It works. Yeah. Good energy. He did. And exactly. And that movie, I don't think, would have worked without Johnny Depp, which brings us to 2008, Johnny Depp is announced as Tonto. Gore Vribinski also takes credit for being the first to suggest Johnny Depp as Tonto in early discussions for the film. So how common is it to announce an actor prior to a director for something like this?

It doesn't seem that common. I can think of some examples. but yeah, usually that's tricky. You're taking something that the director wants to have a big say in and taking it away from them. Yeah. You know, I can say from personal experience, it's happened once for me. It worked out fine, but there's a reason why usually you want the director in on that decision

since they have to work with the actor throughout the entire process. Don't need them. Johnny Depp's coming in first. And the other thing is that this leans even more into the idea that this is Tonto's movie. They're casting Depp first. They're not casting him as the Lone Ranger, which some people thought that I saw one interview that was saying that, like, Jerry Bruchheimer maybe thought that's what was being pitched initially, but I'm not sure. So I poked around a lot, and I actually did not see a ton of pushback on Depp being announced as playing a Native American character back in 2008. It seems like that takes a couple of years for people to think about it and realize it's a really, really bad idea.

Depp himself claims to have some native ancestry, quote, my great-grandmother was quite a bit of Native American. She grew up Cherokee or maybe Creek Indian. Makes sense in terms of coming from Kentucky, which is rife with Cherokee and Creek. Just want to clarify, this is not confirmed by anyone. Also, just because you have a small percentage of. Native American in your 23 and me does not make you Native American. Yeah. My mom's Puerto Rican. I'm not going around playing Puerto Rican in movies or my day-to-day life. And she's not just a little bit way back. My mom is from Puerto Rico.

Yeah. So yeah, you don't do that. No. Quote, the interesting thing, if you find out you've got Native American blood, which a lot of people do, bingo, Johnny, a lot of people do. If you think about where it comes from and go back and read the books. You have to think somewhere along the line, I'm the product of some horrific rape. You just have that little sliver in your chemical makeup. The press tour for this movie. Oh, it's a train wreck. Also, how did it, like, stop him. Stop him. What is he, I mean, like, first of all, what he's saying, if you're, if you have family that has been in America for, you know, five, six generations, the likelihood that you've, have a very small portion of Native American is probably pretty high. So like this is not

something to be parading around as the reason that you should represent a full-blooded Comanchee on screen. Anyway, it goes downhill from here. Depp makes it clear from the get-go he's hoping to reinvent Tonto and the movie is too. This is why he's the first name announced, as we said. They say that they want to make Tonto the lead this time. And in theory, undo some of the stereotypes that former versions of Tonto had perpetuated. But they cast Johnny Depp. So, now, while telling the story from Tonto's perspective seems to have been top of mind for Depp and for Vrabinski, it apparently wasn't the vision that Rassio and Elliot had.

This is according to Gore Vribinski as well. So right out the gate, we've got some script problems. Chris, have you heard anything about an original version of this script that might seem unusual? No, I have not. I really tried to look up nothing in this movie, so... There is something that will come up if you start digging into the lone ranger, which is werewolves. Werewolves?

Well, there is a weird movie. Like, there's a moment in this movie where... Yes. Army Hammers, John Reed, touches a cursed rock. Uh-huh. And then, like, sees all these visions that concludes with him as a cannibal. Uh-huh. And that never comes back.

And I was like, what is that happening? That's right. So it's not actually werewolves, but it's close. In 2009, Mike Newell is in talks to direct. Now, this might seem surprising since, according to Gore Vribinski himself, he was privy to the genesis of this movie. But he says he was approached and he declined early on because there was something a little odd about the original Rossio and Elliott script. Werewolves. Sort of.

Not actually werewolves. It was Wendigows, but when you look this up, you will see the word werewolf. Gotcha. This is what people are talking about. This is why randomly throughout the movie, Johnny Depp is throwing that word around for seemingly no reason with no payoff. You may have noticed in the movie that, yes, there are references to a Wendigo, which is a terrifying carnivorous evil critter from Native American and Native Canadian folklore with a... It's a northern American Native American, different tribes, Native American legend. That's correct.

With a taste for human flesh and also those weird carnivorous rabbits, a highlight of the film. Yeah. What was that? And they ended on it, too. It's so weird. And the fact that Cavendish, played by William Fickner, straight up eats Dan Reed's heart. It seems that these may be relics of an original script that had a shit. ton of supernatural elements in it, including something to do with supernatural coyotes.

I don't know. This should not be surprising, though, given that pirates features an undead ship of zombie pirates. I didn't say that's true. I forgot about that. Yeah. So they're, you know. It works more in the Caribbean, I feel like. You know, if you're going to do a weird, reinvented lone ranger, why not put werewolves in it?

Well, you got to lean into it. I guess that's the thing. And they didn't really do that. I think their original script did also. Famously, the Lone Ranger always carries silver bullets, which I'm guessing is why they made that connection, because that's how you could then kill the werewolves. Yeah.

Well, he does have them in this movie, but it's like barely mentioned. Now, it's unclear whether the script just wasn't working or whether the studio was worried that the supernatural stuff would cost way too much money on a movie that was already looking very expensive, but suddenly Racio and Elliott are out as writers. Wow. Around 2010, Justin Hath, I think is how you pronounce his name,

a novelist and screenwriter, fresh off fun time Western romp revolutionary road, is brought on to rewrite the screenplay. And according to a timeline of this mess from the Hollywood reporter, Vribinski signs on to helmet around this time. He also claims that Justin's new script was based off of Vibinski's initial pitch for the movie. How much fun is Revolutionary Road? It's a grand old time. I think that's when Leo decided he only wanted to date 20-year-olds after that movie.

Oh, yeah. That's very tower. I mean, this movie feels like two or three movies at odds with each other. Yeah. And some of those movies, I really am like, oh, that's cool. I like that. And other ones, I'm like, what's happening? This is not good.

Yeah. It's at this point that I want to call out some pretty major plot similarities to another movie I have now mentioned a couple of times. Chris, do you know what I'm talking about? The Mask of Zora? Bingo, Mask of Zorro. So Justin may have rewritten out the supernatural elements, but the end result still bears some very striking similarities to the Mask of Zorro. I cannot take full credit for this.

This is something that plenty of people have called out, but the similarities are pretty wild. Both movies feature A Lost Brother. Both movies feature a batty with a taste for human flesh and or flesh in liquids, if you remember in Mask of Zorro, the weird blonde guy. Yeah, he takes body parts and keeps them in jars. and like sips on the little jar liquid. Both movies have said baddie

working for an even bigger baddie. Yes. That is a classic. It is. Bigger, baddie with deep set ties to another major character in the film who is now set on revenge.

That is Tonto and Tom Wilkinson here and Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zaded Jones's dad in the Mask of Zorro. Both batties are after a precious metal. This one's silver. Mask of Zorro is gold. And both batties meet their end when they are smushed by a rolling cart

of said precious metal. Interesting. Yeah. I was going to say, to me, this had a lot of vibes of Indiana Jones, the Last Crusade. Sure. Trying to set up the origin story and all that.

And Wild Wild West, unfortunately, I felt some Wild Wild West in this as well. Well, yeah, because they're trying to do like a hip, a hip new Western, which just maybe don't. So you might notice that we still don't have a lone ranger. Ruckheimer himself even said they were waiting to cast the role

until they had a director and waiting on Depp to finish filming Pirates 4 anyway so they're like, whatever, don't need him. Can you guess another actor who was allegedly in talks to Don the Mask? You love him.

I mean, I always, Ryan Gosling. Yes. That's why I was hoping that it was Ryan God. I'm like, this movie would be so good with Ryan Gosling. No, it wouldn't.

Yes, no, I mean, obviously and also recast Johnny Debt. But like, Ryan, like, Gil Birmingham, as Tonto and Ryan Gosling as, like that's, oh my God. Yeah, you're right. It would be great. It could be good.

It is interesting, though, when I was looking, because I saw like Ryan Gosling's name pop up in one place and I usually poke around and try and find a bunch of the industry trades articles. And it was within 24 hours that the articles saying Ryan Gosling in talks were followed up by Ryan Gosling will not play the Lone Ranger. Wait, Johnny Depp's playing who? Okay. Thanks, guys.

Yeah. It did not last long. Mm-hmm. So by April of 2011, Army Hammer is in talks for the role. We all know Army Hammer these days as an allegedly cannibalistic sexual assaulter. He's currently under investigation for that whilst working as a timeshare salesman. But back in 2011, he'd just come off his turn as the Winklevoss Twins in the social network. The Winklevye. The Winklevye. He's great. He's excellent in that movie.

Yeah. It's a great movie. It is a great movie. It is a great movie. He is. He is just playing double rich assholes who are used to always getting their way, though, which in case you aren't aware, Army Hammer is very, very, very, very, very rich. Yes. Yes. His grandfather Armandhammer, for whom he's named, was a massive oil tycoon. And not the inventor of Armandhammer. That's correct.

Which is what someone on this podcast may have thought named Chris. Jesus. Army Hammer of the Arm and Hammer for you. No, that would be the cruelest joke to play on your child. But it would be so fine. I guess. I guess. Why not?

You're very rich. You can. He's ultra rich. He's tall. He's blonde. He's very handsome. And obviously, everyone in Hollywood thinks it's time to make Army Hammer happen. However, he is by no means a huge star at this point.

Yeah, no. I mean, you know, what they didn't realize is there was only one star coming out of the social network. And that was Dakota Johnson. Yeah, well, and Rooney Mara. Yeah, but I'm talking about like blockbuster billions, like with the front 50, 50 shades. That's true. There you go. So, yeah. So this just underscores what we keep hearing, which is that the Lone Ranger was not the intended star of this movie, even though he was the titular role. Yeah, it makes sense. He would be like definitely second bill. Exactly. Exactly. And certainly cheaper than Johnny Depp. Now, by July of 2011, the rest of the cast has been assembled, including Tom Wilkinson, love, Helen and Bonham

Carter, love sometimes. Always great. Yeah. Barry Pepper, love, poor Barry. Love, love Barry. And Dwight Yocum was supposed to play The Carnivorous, maybe one slightly Wendigo, Cavendish. Really? Yeah.

Okay. I kind of want to see that. He's got a, like, I could see him having a nastier, like, disposition. One thing I did think was, like, I love William Fickner. Do not get me wrong. But I kind of felt like, like, he's not. I love him as more of like the dry, you know, character actor. And so, yeah, I'm interesting.

Dwight Yokein, as we know from Slingblade, can be very scary. That's what I mean. He can be really nasty. Yeah, he's a good actor. I was thinking even are like a Killian Murphy type or something like that if he went a little younger. And again, William Fickner is a wonderful actor.

He did a great job. And that's, anyway. I will say William Fickner did look, so I watched a lot of behind the scenes videos. He did look the most scared of the trains, which made me love him so much more. As he should be. As he should be.

Everybody else is like, I loved it. My head's dangling over the side. William Fickner is going, so you want me to, it's moving? You want me to move on the moving train? Yeah. They're like, yes. Isn't there like a green screen for this?

Can we do a green screen for this? He's the only one. It's so funny. All right. So, filming is supposed to begin in October of that year, but something happens in August of 2011. Disney completely shuts down production because someone looks at the budget and says, hell no. And they don't just shut down production.

They essentially shelve it. They're like, we're not doing this. Yeah. I mean, because this movie, looks great. Like, they spent money. And every aspect of, like, the locations, the costumes, the production design,

the extras, the CGI. Like, that's the best CGI horsework I've ever seen. Industrial light and magic. They did an amazing job. Yes, they did. That looks so good. So, yeah, I mean, it clearly was extremely expensive. And by the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie,

they were just shoveling cash into the furnace like it's coal to keep the movie going, I feel like. And those movies are really fun, so it's nothing against them. But I definitely, I'm sure it had bloated, is my point. You know, the way that they were making these types of movies had become very expensive. Yes, although, as we're going to get into, a shocking amount of this movie is practical. That's why I think it's so expensive, too. Like a lot of the pirate stuff was practical as well. Yes.

Now, Bruckheimer is no stranger to his films being shut down due to budget issues. Pirates of the Caribbean, the curse of the Black Pearl, Pearl Harbor, and Armageddon all suffered the same fate. The difference is... Michael Bay? No, those were all hits. Oh, yeah. Why was he saying also Michael Bay getting on the phone with someone being like, do you really want to fuck with me right now? My God.

So, Rich Ross at the time the head of Disney Studios, was very concerned about the fact that he already had two massive over $250 million films in the pipeline. One was the ill-fated John Carter, which we will certainly cover, and Oz the Great and Powerful. There's another big concern with the Lone Ranger. What is it, Chris? You've called it out before.

The racism of Johnny Depp? Well, no, no, no. They're not worried about that. That won't be a problem when it comes to money. What type of movie is at this point not making money? Oh, Westerns. Bingo. It's a genre that outside of prestige dramas like True Grit,

and 310 to Yuma has been declining in popularity for years. Chris already mentioned it, but Wild Wild West is a famously big flop, although it is kind of fun. As was Cowboys and Aliens, which was much more recent to this one. And John Carter is a Western. John Carter is a Western on Mars, but it's a Western. It also fails. Now, Bruckheimer pushes back big time,

but it sounds like the person behind the ballooning budget is Gore of Rubinski. He was apparently very tired of water at the, this point and very excited about trains. Real trains, that is. So Gore really wanted to do as much of this movie practically as was humanly possible. And by October of 2011, Disney has put the project back on the schedule because Rabinsky, Depp, Bruckheimer, and I think Army Hammer all agree to reduce their fees by around 20 percent. And Rabinsky, Depp, and Bruckheimer agree to forego that their back end if the film comes in over a newly agreed upon $215 million cap. This is why I think they're all still paying Disney back.

Many of the articles at the time also referenced the Pirates Connection. One could definitely make the leap that Depp, Rabinsky, and Bruckheimer leveraged their successful franchise to get the Greenlight on Ranger, i.e., did they, you know, dangle a contract to get this done. So it's now slated for a May 2013 release. Fun fact, Jack White is briefly attached to write the music. I thought that was interesting. But he bailed shortly thereafter and is replaced by Hans Zimmer.

Jack White writing the music does make me feel like they were really intending this to be a much edgier, more deconstructed Western than what we end up with. And I think that we see that in the tone to what you're talking about in terms of it really not making any sense. Brookheimer said of White's involvement at CinemaCon, quote, So we're going to have a little rock and roll score, and I can't wait to hear his rendition of the William Tell Overture. Well, it would probably be cool, but you'll never hear it. Unfortunately, Dwight Yoakum also bails due to scheduling conflicts and is replaced relatively last minute by William Fickner, who we love and who hates trains.

Allegedly, I don't know that. So production begins in March of 2012, and right away, things are going off the rails financially. There are delays due to wildfires and a chicken pox outbreak on set, which push schedules back. Also, Tim Alexander, one of the film's visual effects supervisors, said of Rabinsky, quote, it became very apparent early on that he's very much into building the stuff. This is Army Hammer on Conan explaining how they shot that crazy, crazy shot where he's on the very, very tip top of a tower that looks like they couldn't possibly have done it practically. That was crazy.

Yeah, that is a point called Dead Horse Point. And you know if anything in nature is named after an animal, it's pretty intense. And a dead animal specifically means... Right. Never a good sign. Not a good sign. No one says, let's go have a hamburger

at Dead Horse Point. Right. You couldn't if you wanted to, because you can't even get water on Dead Horse Point. But, I mean, obviously, it's not that sort of cylindrical and tall. It's more of a but we shot on the edge of it. And they built this wooden structure

that I got to the bottom of it and I looked up, and I remember grabbing one of the beams and just kind of pushing it. Remember, like, this is moving a little bit. Like, this doesn't feel very solid. And they're like, yeah, yeah. So what you're going to do, there's actually a carabiner up there.

So go up there and clip yourself in. I was like, no one's going up there. They're like, we can't really put two people on it. I was like, okay. They probably weren't that worried about losing you because they thought you had a twin. I love coaching. Good joke from him. And that shot looks great.

It does look great. Just gives you an idea of how much of this they are doing them. themselves. Tim Alexander again, quote, he's about getting as much as he can on camera, as much reality as he can. Trains are really difficult to shoot on as it turns out. Yeah, they shake a lot and they're loud and you can't hear anyone talk and it takes forever to slow them down. It takes forever to speed them up. Yeah, and they're very expensive. But you can't turn them around. You cannot. Gore-Vibinsky really, really loved the train. trains. He built that entire old west town and five miles of train tracks around it.

And it looks great. It looks awesome. This is north of Albuquerque is where the main five miles of train tracks were set. They also built them in an oval, which was apparently Gore-Bubinsky's idea because that means you can get the trains running all four directions, north-south, east-west. Additional train tracks were built in and around Moab, Utah, and sections of the Union Pacific Railroad. were also used. So obviously not all the trains are real. As I said, Industrial Light and Magic did the VFX for this movie. You can watch some pretty cool behind the scenes videos

on how they created a lot of the last 30 minutes, but they're really only creating the things that humans absolutely could not be involved in. As I said, I watched the BTS doc on YouTube, and these men love their trains so much. They didn't just build the tracks. They also built these trains to look exactly right for the era. They went up to 30 to 40 miles per hour.

And not only did Gore love the trains, he loved putting the actors on the trains. According to Bruckheimer, quote, Gore believes the audiences can tell what's fake. He put the actors on top of the trains. That's really them doing that. It's crazy. And also, some of those shots looked so good. I was really blown away.

You can watch this documentary and it looks fucking. miserable. I mean, some of them, Ruth Wilson, who may be some kind of sociopath, looks like she's having fun. Everybody else is like, this is awful. Well, Barry Pepper seems to kind of enjoy it, too. So they weren't just on top of trains either. Sometimes they were on top of trains that were on top of semi-truck beds. So anywhere they couldn't get a actual railroad? And trucks? Hell yeah, buddy. Trains and trucks. Michael Bay's new movie. They literally just put them on a bed of a truck and they were driving around through these crazy, windy, windy highways, and they're on top of those.

Great. As you can probably guess, because they were doing so many of their own stunts, things did get dangerous for the cast and crew. Many of them, as I said, did their own stunts, including Johnny Depp. Now, I want you to watch this video, Chris, because it's going to give you, I think, a pretty visceral reaction. This is a video that started circulating while they were still shooting that shows what almost happened to Johnny Depp.

Did you say that? Yeah, Johnny Depp falls from his horse and is almost trampled by his horse. Yeah, he really almost got his head stopped. Really, truly almost trampled. Like, it's not one of the, like, he fell off the back. It looks like the horse is going on top of his head for a second. No, that, when I saw that video, that's like, I mean. It looks very dangerous.

If you all want to see it, you can go and search like Johnny Depp, lone ranger accident. It will pop up. It is crazy. First of all, the fact that it's both of them, it's both of them doing most of them doing most of the riding in this and a lot of the running on the trains. And Johnny Depp just slowly slides off the horse and goes completely underneath it. I did say this was kind of sweet. He later on thanked the horse for saving his life because if you watch it, it does not

step on his head. It definitely looks like the horse goes out of its way to jump over him. And so he did thank the horse. That's good. Allegedly, a stuntman was also injured on the set in New Mexico, although I could not confirm what that injury was, and Army Hammer reportedly also fell off a horse and hurt his elbow. Unfortunately, someone actually did die. Water safety expert Mike Bridger suffered a heart attack while underwater cleaning a pool

that was going to be used in the film, and he drowned. Now, the studio definitely tried to sweep this under the rug as an unavoidable accident. Pretty much everyone did agree that, yes, he did, like he had a heart attack. That is what happened. However, OSHA did an investigation. They end up finding a producer on the film over $60,000 because they didn't have anywhere near the safety protocols they were supposed to have in place. Other staff members were not trained in CPR or they were not up to date in their

CPR training. And they did not have a standby diver available when he was in the water. I watched a video with his brother, which was really sad. And apparently there was a second. diver, but that guy just like walked off to get a sandwich or something for like 10 or 15 minutes, during which time Mike had a heart attack was underwater the entire time. And then when he was pulled out, was not able to be resuscitated. So his death may have been avoidable had they had the proper amount of trained staff on site. We'll never know. It's very sad. But one does have to wonder

if this may be related to the desire to keep budgets down. Because remember, if they go over $215 million, it starts to come out of depth, Rabinsky, and particularly Jerry Brunheimer's pockets. Other reports said that they had cut back on other below the line folks such as makeup artists and production personnel to try and reduce the ballooning budget. So that was very sad. Now, sometime around the spring of 2012, which, remember, they are in production. They are filming this movie.

It sure seems like somebody in the PR department realizes they've got a huge, issue on their hands. With Johnny Debs casting? Not Native American. Yes. There we go. I keep waiting for this to come up. Here it is.

2012. It only took four years to come up. They did apparently have a Comanchee advisor on the film, but it was interesting in the little behind the scenes doc that I watched. You remember the Comanche village that they go to that Gil Birmingham is in? This guy is like, yeah, we're on the set of the Comanche village, although we Comanche did not ever actually live in forests. We live on the plains.

But anyway, they really went out of their way to make the TPs look authentic. I was like, oh, no, this poor man. Yeah, yeah. So here's where their campaign to try and make this right begins. In April, Navajo Nation president and vice president are invited onto the set of the film to meet the cast and crew for a photo op complete with Johnny Depp in full Tonto costume. I guess this is a nice gesture, considering a chunk of the movie is filmed on or close to Navajo Nation land. I'm not sure how genuine it is because just one month later, news breaks that Johnny Depp was officially adopted into the Comanche Nation.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's some really uncomfortable photo ops here as well. This is just all a bummer because, like, there's a Comanche activist. named Ladonna Harris, who was very complimentary of Depp and, like, praising the ideals he's held throughout his career and also praising that his portrayal would be of a full-blooded Comanche Tonto. It's sad because, like, I understand if this was pitched to her as, like,

this is a new version, he's the lead. Like, there's a Comanche hero that's the lead of this movie. But, like, man. Yeah, but that's not what happened. Like, she was duped in some way. They lied. That's what, I mean, that's what I have to think, because that is not the version of the movie. No, that's not the movie that got, made it to the screen.

No. It's, uh, he plays second fiddle. Yes. To the white characters' stories, even though his story is much more interesting. Yep. And his character is utterly incomprehensible also. Yeah. Like, it makes, his character makes no sense from a writing perspective.

I have no idea if it's a joke or not a joke. It's so weird. It's really weird. And beyond that, you know, she's saying this is a portrayal of a full-blooded Comanchee, but the film goes out of its way to make it clear that he is not part of the community and that he's not like the other Comanche's. And in fact, he sold them out. It's a really, really weird choice.

Yeah. So this whole thing just made me really uncomfortable. I felt very bad for, you know, everybody involved. And it just, it feels like PR stunts. Like, it's, you can tell when these things are happening one right after the other, like they know they have a problem. Then Depp goes on to do a Rolling Stone interview in which he says, quote, I wanted to maybe give some hope to kids on the reservations.

They're living without running water and seeing problems with drugs and booze. But I wanted to be able to show these kids, fuck that. You're still warriors, man. By showing that they can't play this character. It's, yeah, it doesn't read right. Everyone just obviously is attempting to save their financial investment by claiming that they're doing this in honor of something when they're desecrating it for money. And it's just bullshit. And it's just very frustrating.

Yeah. And I mean, also, I don't know if you. You've seen this. There is a James Cameron quote as well that's circulating right now that was from around the first avatar where I'm going to butcher this, but he basically says something very similar where he's like, I wonder if we could have gone back in time and told, you know, native peoples what was going to happen if they would have fought harder. It's like, wow. I don't even know what to say other than that these men should shut their mouths. So production and post continues.

But also in the summer of 2012, reports start coming out that the budget has gone right back up over 250 million again. Disney denies this, but anonymous sources are talking to the press and they're confirming that it is ballooning. They're also saying that rewrites are happening and more action sequences are being excised from the shooting schedule. So this is probably a lot of the weird choppiness that you're seeing throughout the movie is happening around here. Also, in May of 2012, Ross is ousted at Disney due to John Carter, tanking, among other things, and Alan Horn comes out of retirement to take his spot. Horne reportedly went to work right away in the Lone Ranger and cut several minutes out of the scene where Cavendish eats Reed's heart. He said, quote, I like heart in my movies, but not that much heart.

Again, yeah. If I were Disney exact, I'd be like, you can't have a character who eats another character's heart. That was a really weird moment. No, it's like Last of the Mohicans level heart-eating graphic. Like, it's weird. And it's also weird because you can tell they had already shot a very long sequence that they just chopped down in a way that doesn't really make any sense. So, Alan Horn, 100% right, but he came in too late.

Most of this had already been shot. As we've said, the movie is very gory, like way too gory for kids, kind of unpleasant to watch as an adult because none of the violence really makes any sense. Well, and it's like alternately played for horror but then played for comedy in a way that feels very confusing. I wonder if this is related to the Elliott and Rossio script as well, because the violence may have made more sense and played more palidably had it been a more supernatural feature. But when they removed that, it makes it weird. Yes. Yeah, when it's like a werewolf feeding someone's heart, kids can...

Exactly. Okay, that's a monster. But it's just some dude eating someone's heart. Yeah. Okay, this feels very real. All right, so the Lone Ranger drops its first trailer at San Diego Comic-Con almost a year ahead of the movie's launch, beginning a massive and incredibly expensive marketing campaign. They drop a Super Bowl commercial for this thing, and they're pushing the Pirates of the Caribbean connection pretty hard throughout the campaign. All in all, it's rumored to have cost at least $150 million to market and distribute this, and I think that's probably low.

Oh, definitely low. Yeah, putting Disney all in at $400 million plus. Meaning they need to hit $800 million plus to break even. Yep. However, when the Lone Ranger hits theaters nationwide on July 3rd, 2013, it is unquestionably, immediately a massive big-time flopper. Big-time floppers with Lizzie Bassett. We got a big-time flopper on our hands.

Yes, you do. All right. It is critically panned in addition to being a huge, huge commercial failure. According to box office mojo, it takes in around $30 million its opening weekend. Pretty bad. It gets its ass handed to it by Despicable Me Too. The minions rally. It's just what I'm going to say. The minions show up. Makes so much money. They do. The Lone Ranger would go on to make $260 million worldwide total. Oh no. Yeah. Yeah. It's immediately compared to John Carter. honestly I think unfair to John Carter

that was a better movie than this Depp and Hammer come out in defense of the movie notably I would say significantly more Army Hammer than Johnny Depp I wonder if Johnny Depp was like ooh I need to Yeah he was probably like I need to back away from this a little bit Yeah but then was he because he went and did those Dior commercials Anyway

So basically Army Hammer came out saying that like all their reviews were out to get them because of the cost of the film That they were you know reviewing the budget and not the content But I got news for him. The content is also not that good. Well, there are good parts of it. Well, yeah, I was going to say, can I jump in for one second? I want you to hold it because there's someone else who I think shares your opinion.

And I think you will like it. I already love it. I love when anyone agrees with me. We're almost there. Well, we'll see how you feel about this. And Hitler, it was his favorite movie. So very quickly, by August, reports are coming out that Disney plans to take a $190 million. loss on the film, at least. At least. In September of 2014, Disney chairman Alan Bergman

is asked if Disney recouped anything more from John Carter or The Lone Ranger in Home Video or other markets, to which he famously replied, quote, it didn't get that much better. We did lose that much money on those movies. But one person liked it. Chris, are you ready to hear? Yeah. The Lone Ranger made it on to Quentin Tarantino's top list of movies. movies for 2013. But I want to read what he said, because I think it's going to be close to how you feel as well. He says, the first 45 minutes are excellent. The next 45 are a little sapperific. It was a bad idea to split the bad guys into groups. It takes hours to explain and nobody cares. Then comes the train scene. Incredible. Great. Yep. When I saw it, I kept thinking,

what? That's the film everybody says is crap. Seriously? That being said, I still have a little problem with the film. I like Tonto's backstory. The idea that his tribe got slaughtered because of him, that's a real comic book thing. But the slaughter of the tribe by gunfire from the cavalry, it left a bitter taste in their mouth. It's so bad. The Indians have been victims of a genocide. So slaughtering them again in an entertaining movie Buster Keaton style that ruined the fun for me. I simply found it ugly. Making fun of this when America really did it, it bothered me. That doesn't stop it. And it serves no, It serves no narrative function. Nope. That doesn't stop it from being a good film, but they really could have done without that.

Yes. That's almost exactly how I felt about the movie, which is the, if I can do my own Tarantinoification of it. I didn't love the Johnny Depp as old Tonto talking to the little boy, but whatever. That's fine. Take it or leave it. But the first set piece on the train so good. And funny, when he tries to hand the little girl her doll back and it gets sucked out the window, I laughed out loud. And when he puts his gun away and all of a sudden the door swings open and all the people are pointing guns, like great physical comedy, amazing choreography, great stunt work, great work, all the looks amazing. Yeah. So fun, introduces its characters. I thought that was awesome.

I thought, and I really thought up until the death of the brother, it was, you know, it had its. lurching moments, but I was enjoying it, even though I agree I didn't take aside the two leads. I'm not really loving them. Right. Once you get past Johnny Depp's accent. And then the movie totally falls apart for a while. And then you hit the next train sequence. And again, like the scene where the arrows are raining down and Army Hammer is blindfolded.

It's super funny. Yeah. And it works really well. But then again, they talk about a horrible, just wet blanket to throw in the movie. they, for no reason, just show us the last samurai-style slaughter of an entire tribe of people. Again, for no reason, it serves no purpose in the story. It could not happen, and it would be exactly the same. Like, there was no, it feels, I don't understand it at all.

I totally agree. It's trying to bring some level of gravitas to their idea that they are reinventing this and reinventing Tonto, but they just completely missed the mark. What, Tonto gets another tribe killed? Like, it just was... It's horrible. There was no emotional resonance to it. And then the end...

Again, I liked... But again, that's where the tone was so off. Then... The last 30 minutes are great. They're so fun. Yeah. The William Tell Overture going over the whole thing. Just him shooting a gun,

riding a horse, jumping on trains. Like, that is the movie right there. It was so fun. And, yeah. So I very much agreed. I just thought that there was so much great craftsmanship at work from the below the line people on this movie that should be acknowledged because it's so unfair to just say, oh, the Lone Ranger is a shit movie. It's an extremely well-made movie in so many ways that is saddled with a couple of horrible decisions that were made so many rungs up from so many people that worked on the movie. Yeah.

So anyway, that's my rant. No, I think that's totally right. And also like Quentin Tarantino famously has had some missteps in this arena. He gets it. Like this is. And I do like Quentin Tarantino. You know, I think even with his missteps, there's a different, there's a different, like his heart is in a different place, I think. Yeah.

I don't know. But yeah. When I read that, I was like, yeah, yes. Like 100%. The last 30 minutes, the first. 30 to 40 minutes, they are quite fun. This could have been a good movie. I would have watched the werewolf version of this.

Sure. I don't even care if it's Army Hammer. Fine. Well, now I care, I guess. But back then, like, whatever. Yeah, hindsight's 2020. But yeah, he was fine. I didn't know he was eating people.

Yeah, recast Tonto and, yeah. Allegedly eating people. I don't think he's been convicted. But, yeah, recast Tonto. This does not need to be Johnny Depp. Put a native actor in this. either go all in on the supernatural stuff or pull it all out, but don't go have zies on Wendigo's, please. That was not a good idea.

Do I want to watch a movie about Wendigo's? Maybe. Antlers. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there actually are several movies about them, I think, already. Well, Chris, that wraps up the Lone Ranger for us. Also, I forgot to do this at the top, but thank you to everyone who's recommended this movie. We've gotten it a million times.

Honestly, I was avoiding it. But I'm glad I finally watched it. I am too. I really didn't want to, but it's certainly not the worst thing that we have reviewed on this podcast. It did, like, put me into a coma researching it because there were so many weird rabbit holes. I kept going down that I would, like, get too much anxiety from reading it and just stop for like three days at a time. You could go. You could rattle real deep on a lot of people involved in this movie. Yes.

So, yeah. And it came in an interesting. It came at an inflection point, I think, in the way that we were watching movies. and finally realizing how we've been doing so many things wrong for so long, and we're starting to hopefully improve upon that. And so, like, the Lone Ranger is and should be held up as an example of what not to do. What not to do in so many of those ways. And I want to make sure that we always do that and that we continue to do that.

But I also think it's important to separate the fact that the movies require such a coordination of efforts from so many different people. And there really is such, I mean, even just I would like to say to whoever did the prop design on this movie, the design of, the design of, oh my God, from every Tim Burton movie, why am I blankingham Carter? Her leg, for the design of her ivory shotgun leg is so good. Like, it looks like, I want, I was like, I want to touch it just because it looks so amazingly well built. I totally believed it. It didn't feel like a prop. I was like, that looks like it works. Yeah.

And I think that's the ultimate compliment you could pay to somebody who makes props in a movie. And even just like they're walking through the fair and everything that was on display looked like it would be on display at that point in time. Like it was just so remarkable the way that it was done. Yeah. I mean, I think we're getting into what went right, which is great and appropriate. Yeah, so let's dive in, Lizzie. Sure.

I do just want to say that I think what you called out in terms of this being inflection point is absolutely right between 2008 when I scrubbed through, there were not headlines about this being an issue. And then all of a sudden we have this conversation about representation starting to come to the foreground. And yeah, just a reminder that representation really, really, really is important. And this is how not to do it. In terms of what went right, Chris, it sounds like you're going for the production design. I have a different one, actually. But you go first. You go first. I'm going to do two.

Sure. I'm going to do the Twains because everybody loved the Twains, including all these men on this set who have never been so happy in their lives. And the horses, the horseback riding in this was gorgeous. And I love the way that it was shot. And because it's them doing so much of it, it's not choppy. It's really beautiful to look at. They're shooting in these just stunning locations in the American Southwest.

And yeah, I'll say horses. and Twains. Great stuff. Great stuff all around. I would like to say my what went right goes to the first assistant director and all of the assistant directors on this movie. We never talk about them. But the first assistant director, one of the many important things they do,

aside from managing the schedule, et cetera, keeping the crew on time, is the team of assistant directors managed extras on movies. They give them the direction in the movie. And so when you see an extra that looks out of place and is looking at the camera or doing something weird, like that's the assistant director's job to manage them as the director manages the actors. And I thought the extra work and blocking in this movie was out of this world. I thought it was so good. And I never noticed it.

And usually only notice it if it's bad. But I noticed it because in this movie, it was, I always felt like the frame was full and that there were real interactions happening that I was interested in at the edge of. of the frame and behind our main actors. So I want to say, great job to all of the extras in this movie and the wonderful team of assistant directors who worked with them. So you went right on this one. Fun fact about the extras as well, many of the extras that you see who are building the railroad are people who actually built the railroad. They are. I believe it. I was like, I feel like I'm watching actual labor. They are. Taking place. Yeah, that's their actual job. And then

basically somebody was like, why would we hire actor extras when we could just. Just hire these guys. It's great. Smart decision. And it looks awesome. So thank you so much, Lizzie. That was a fascinating, very sad, in my opinion. But hopefully something that we can all learn from as we understand the importance of representation

and why it's not something that should be taken lightly and then retconned with a half-hearted PR campaign. Yeah. Yeah. After the fact. If you guys, one of a couple movies I've seen recently. that I really liked. Just me personally,

Native American representation in. Prey on Hulu. It's the Predator reboot. It's awesome. Also, Reservation Dogs is really good. And, you know, not a lot of people like this movie, but I really liked it. Hold the Dark on Netflix.

Jeremy Solnier, it's the follow-up to Green Room, Blue Ruin. Yeah. Anyway, it's weird. But it also has, It also has James Badgedale in it, so that's why I wanted to plug it also. And I love James Badgedale. More work for James Badgedale, too.

He's great. So anyway, thank you so much, Lizzie. Anything else before we let these guys go? No. We will see you all next season. And in the meantime, to keep you thirsty birds dated, we will be re-airing some of our favorite encore episodes from the last three seasons. So keep an eye on the feed.

And it's just going to be the birds every time for the thirsty birds. The birds. The birds. Feed the birds. All right. Thanks a lot, guys. See you soon. Until February.

Bye. What went wrong is a sad boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. Editing music by David Bowman with cover art from Utano U.S.