'Lone Ranger' Is No Match For 'Despicable Me 2'

Those yellow minions are bringing in a whole lot of green at the box office.

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A Minute With: Steve Carell on being a 'Despicable' dad

By Piya Sinha-Roy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Steve Carell has inhabited many different roles, from a 40-year-old virgin, a bumbling office manager and a Vegas magician, but it is an evil villain in animated film "Despicable Me 2" where he finds a close connection as a real-life dad.

Carell, 50, who appears again as Gru in "Despicable Me 2," and as a dysfunctional dad in independent comedy "The Way, Way Back," both out in theaters this week, is also exploring new challenges in his career with the hopes of more dramatic roles.

The actor talked to Reuters about his similarities to Gru, not getting pigeon-holed and donning suits for "Anchorman 2."

Q: Now that he's a dad, was there any fear that Gru wasn't going to be quite as despicable as the first film?

A: I feel like you still see that dark side of him and when push comes to shove, he is an evil mastermind and he always will be. He's reformed, he can't be that anymore because he has kids. His career has to change but his sense of self doesn't really.

Q: Which part of Gru's story did you relate to in this film?

A: I have two little kids so I don't really relate to him as a super spy, but I do relate to him as a dad for sure, and the fact that he has a daughter that's getting to the age that she's interested in boys and dating, I have a daughter that is just on the verge of that age, so I think I related to that most of all.

Q: Are your priorities changing in your career now that you're getting older and your kids are getting older?

A: I've been doing some more dramatic work, I'm writing something now and eventually I might direct something. I've got some other things in the fire, but that's just to keep it interesting and exciting.

It's interesting how this movie mirrors what a lot of parents go through when they have kids, because initially, when you have kids, the focus becomes the kids. I know that became the case with my wife and I, almost at the expense of everything else, it became all about our kids. Which is fine, but within that, you can't lose your sense of self, you can't lose your career and what motivates you and what nourishes you. I think that's the character of Gru, he's at odds with himself, so he needs to find something that's not being a villain but is equally satisfying.

Q: Were you ever concerned you could get pigeonholed into a certain character from your comedy roles?

A: I've done big commercial movies and little independent movies, and I've played jerks and suicidal Proust scholars, and I feel like I've been really lucky to play all the different types of characters I play, so no, I don't worry about that. If I do get pigeonholed, it's nothing I can really control.

Q: You recently returned to "The Office" for the finale in May, was it difficult saying goodbye second time round?

"I feel like I really said goodbye to it the first time. When I came back, it was primarily to honor the show and out of respect for all of my friends and the people who created it, I just wanted it to be a simple tip of the hat to the show and not to take away from the goodbye and the farewell that all of those people were having, because I felt like I already had mine and I didn't want to step on their moments."

Q: Your upcoming film "Anchorman 2" has been getting a lot of attention. How is it getting back into the suits?

A: So much fun. It felt the same. The first time around, none of us knew what we were doing or whether it would be funny. We thought it would be funny, but you never know...if it's going to work or why it works necessarily, but that one we all felt like it could be really funny, and this, we have the same feeling about. It was just fun to do, it was ridiculous, we laughed until we cried everyday.

Q: How do you pay homage to the first film and also take the storyline forward with a sequel?

A: I think if you like the first one, you'll like this one as much. I don't want to oversell it, I don't want to hype it too much, I haven't seen it, I've just shot it. But based on what we've filmed, it seems like it's going to be a truly funny movie.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Paul Casciato)

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'Despicable Me 2' Crushing Competition

"Despicable Me 2" box office crushing "The Lone Ranger."

LOS ANGELES ? "The Lone Ranger" seems to be riding into the sunset on its debut weekend.

The Disney Western starring Armie Hammer as the titular character and Johnny Depp as Tonto was outpaced 3 to 1 by Universal's "Despicable Me 2," which also opened Wednesday. The animated sequel collected $59.9 million in ticket sales so far, while "The Lone Ranger" earned a paltry $19.5 million.

While Disney is likely to recover based on its other strong offerings this summer, including Pixar's "Monsters University" and Marvel's "Iron Man 3," the masked man's dismal box-office showing may spell trouble for Depp and all but ends any hope for a Lone Ranger franchise.

"This is one and done," said Stuart Oldham, editor of the industry trade site Variety.com. "You're not going to see another Lone Ranger movie after this."

It's a "big disappointment" for Disney, said media and entertainment analyst Martin Pyykkonen of Wedge Partners. Although the film had been set up for a sequel, "it's obviously not even going to come close to covering the production costs," the analyst said.

Years in the making, "Lone Ranger" filming was shut down for weeks in 2011 because of soaring costs that still ended up in the $250-million range.

Poor reviews for the film may have contributed to the sluggish ticket sales. Chicago Sun-Times critic Richard Roeper called it "slick trash," while the AP's Jake Coyle said the two-and-a-half hour spectacle "finally, exhaustingly collapses in a scrap heap of train wreckage."

""The Lone Ranger' is, alas, a runaway train," Coyle writes.

It's a serious misstep for blockbuster producer Jerry Bruckheimer, director Gore Verbinski and megastar Depp, who partnered profitably on the first three "Pirates of the Caribbean" films. Depp's take on Tonto has been compared unfavorably to Captain Jack Sparrow in face paint.

"(The studio thought) if we have Johnny Depp and we transfer him over to another funny hat and call him Tonto, we're going to be OK, but it's not OK," said Gene Del Vecchio, author of "Creating Blockbusters.

Part of the problem, he said, is that children aren't nearly as familiar with the Lone Ranger as they are with the animated characters in "Despicable Me 2" and last week's first-place film, "Monsters University."

"Kids really need to be reintroduced to the Lone Ranger," he said. "Instead, they were introduced to Tonto in the marketing."

The failure of "The Lone Ranger" could impact studio decisions about what to green-light going forward, and not just at Disney.

"From a film-industry standpoint, when you peel back the onion, you're not going to take a big risk on a big-production film that doesn't have a proven franchise," Pyykkonen said, especially in light of other recent bombs including "John Carter," "Battleship" and "After Earth."

"What's going to take a hit is creativity in Hollywood," Oldham said. "You're going to see more sequels and more remakes after these big bombs."

Pyykkonen said the future of the proven "Pirates" franchise could even be in question.

"There's probably going to be some head-scratching in the Disney film studio board rooms," he said. "Like, `We've had a few in a row here that didn't win at the box office, do we really want to do a `Pirates' 5?"

___

AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter: . www.twitter.com/APSandy

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