Why The Two Most Expensive Westerns Ever Made Were Both Box Office Bombs

The two most expensive Western movies ever made were also massive box office flops, and there’s a fairly simple reason why. Low budgets are almost baked into the Western genre, all that a good Western needs is a few talented actors, natural scenery, intense gunfights, and a well-written story. Some of the best Western movies ever made were made on a shoestring budget. An entire subset of the genre – Spaghetti Westerns – was known for being extraordinarily cheap. Not all Westerns, however, have managed to keep costs down, and two of them got so expensive they were basically destined to flop.

Westerns are no strangers to failure at the box office, particularly after Westerns became unpopular after the 1970s. There’s a long list of great Westerns that bombed at the box office, and a lot of Western flops have been a product of the genre’s constantly changing popularity. The two most expensive Westerns ever made, however, didn’t flop because of a general cultural shift surrounding cowboy movies. There was a much simpler reason The Lone Ranger (2013) and Cowboys & Aliens performed poorly at the box office, and it’s because they weren’t very good.

The Lone Ranger And Cowboys & Aliens Are The Most Expensive Westerns Ever

Adjusted For Inflation, Cowboys & Aliens & The Lone Ranger Cost Several Million More Than Any Other Western

According to the list of the most expensive Western movies ever made, two films carry the genre’s highest price tags adjusted for inflation: Cowboys & Aliens at $220 million, and The Lone Ranger (2013) at $294 million. The next most expensive Western, Home on the Range, cost a distant $194 million, and was fully animated. Unfortunately, The Lone Ranger‘s and Cowboys & Aliens‘ high budgets didn’t translate into high earnings. The Lone Ranger earned just $356 million at the worldwide box office, while Cowboys & Aliens earned just $249 million – both adjusted for inflation – which was not enough for either film to turn a profit (via Box Office Mojo).

Neither Cowboys & Aliens Nor The Lone Ranger Was Good Enough To Justify Their Budget

Both The Lone Ranger & Cowboys & Aliens Were Critically Panned & Didn’t Interest Audiences

The main reason Cowboys & Aliens and The Lone Ranger became box office bombs is because they simply weren’t good enough for their staggering budgets. The Lone Ranger has 31% on Rotten Tomatoes, while Cowboys & Aliens didn’t fare much better at 44%. The typical Hollywood calculus requires a film to make about 2.5 times as much as its budget to turn a profit, and neither The Lone Ranger nor Cowboys & Aliens was good enough to rake in that much money. With a lower budget, they may have been able to make money simply by lowering the goalposts.

As it stands, The Lone Ranger and Cowboys & Aliens would both have to be among the highest grossing Westerns of all time to justify their budgets.

As it stands, The Lone Ranger and Cowboys & Aliens would both have to be among the highest grossing Westerns of all time to justify their budgets. That was likely never going to happen, however, as there’s a significant difference in quality between the highest earning Westerns and them. For example, the most profitable Western of all time is Django Unchained, arguably one of Quentin Tarantino’s best movies and one that certainly benefited from its director’s popularity. By contrast, The Lone Ranger was criticized for casting Johnny Depp as a Comanche warrior, as well as for being boring and overly flashy without much substance.

How The Lone Ranger And Cowboys & Aliens’ Budgets Compare To Traditional Westerns

The Lone Ranger & Cowboys & Aliens Over-Relied On CGI & Star Power

Another big reason both Cowboys & Aliens and The Lone Ranger struggled at the box office is because they used their massive budgets in a significantly different way than more traditional Westerns did. For example, The Revenant, which cost $151 million to make, used its budget to film on-location, nail the bear’s CGI, and faithfully adapt a true story that was already larger than life. Likewise, while it wasn’t a commercial success, John Wayne’s The Alamo ($128 million) spent its budget on making the film into an epic complete with armies of extras, massive full-scale battle reenactments, and soaring Western vistas.

Cowboys & Aliens Cast & Character Guide

Cowboys & Aliens is science fiction Western that sees cowboys and Native Americans combat extra terrestrial forces during the American frontier.

The most expensive Westerns, however, used their budgets differently. Cowboys & Aliens heavily relied on special effects and CGI, which always comes with a high bill, and it also spent a considerable amount of money on its star-studded cast, which included Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, and more. Meanwhile, The Lone Ranger somehow included even more CGI and visual effects, along with a massive action set piece located on a train. It also had a notoriously difficult development that was plagued with re-shoots and delays, which made it both the most expensive Western ever made and one of the genre’s biggest flops.