The team responsible for big-budget flop The Lone Ranger have blamed critics for the film's lack of success. Speaking to Yahoo , stars Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer and producer Jerry Bruckheimer claim that poor reviews led directly to the movie’s disappointing $86m haul in the States thus far. ( Disney announced that they will lose between $160-190 million next quarter as a result of the film's underperformance.)

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“I think the reviews were written seven-to-eight months before we released the film” says Depp, who plays Tonto in the film. “I think the reviews were written when they heard that [director] Gore [Verbinski] and Jerry [Bruckheimer] and me were going to do The Lone Ranger. They had expectations that it must be a blockbuster. I didn’t have any expectations of that. I never do.”The Lone Ranger stalled when the budget spiralled out of control , and Hammer – who plays the title character – said that those behind-the-scenes troubles were responsible for the negative reviews.“They’ve been gunning for out movie since it was shut down the first time” he claims. “That’s when most of the critics wrote their initial reviews. If you go back and read the negative reviews, most of them aren’t about the content of the movie, but more what’s behind it.”He continues “While we were making it we knew people were gunning for it. I think it was the popular thing when the movie hit rocky terrain they just jumped on the bandwagon to try and bash it. They tried to do the same with to World War Z and it didn’t work, the movie was successful. Instead they decided to slit the jugular of our movie.”And uber-producer Bruckheimer blames the film’s spiralling cost – which The Hollywood Reporter estimates to be $250m – as the reason for the bad press.“I think they were reviewing the budget, not reviewing the movie” he complains. “The audience doesn’t care what the budget it – they pay the same amount of money if it costs a dollar or $20m.“It’s unfortunate because the movie is a terrific movie, it’s a great epic film. It has lots of humour. It’s one of those movies that whatever critics missed in it this time, they’ll review it in a few years and see that they made a mistake.”So did you like The Lone Ranger? Do you think the critics got it wrong? Check out the IGN review below and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Chris Tilly is the Entertainment Editor for IGN in the UK and thinks the above comparison with World War Z is somewhat bizarre. He can be found talking nonsense on both Twitter and MyIGN