Reviews or the Disney film adaptation of “The Lone Ranger” were pouring in before the movie even premiered on July 3rd, and they were almost unanimously against the summer blockbuster.

Now that the film has tanked in the U.S. box office the stars are blaming the harsh treatment of the film at the hands of critiques for its poor performance. The Long Ranger himself, Armie Hammer, said of those who panned the movie before its release, “This is the deal with American critics: they’ve been gunning for our movie since it was shut down the first time, that’s when most of the critics wrote their initial reviews.”

Co-star Johnny Depp was just as disappointed by the film’s treatment by the media. In the same interview with Yahoo U.K. he spoke of the media preconceived notions of the movie:

“I think the reviews were written seven to eight months before we released the film. I think the reviews were written when they heard Gore [Verbinksi] 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.”

Hammer echoed that sentiment and added a little more emphasis to his disapproval:

“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 jumped on the bandwagon to try and bash it. They tried to do the same thing with to ‘World War Z’, it didn’t work, the movie was successful. Instead they decided to slit the jugular of our movie.”

Disney cannot be pleased with the results the movie yielding in the U.S., especially since it is speculated that the film could end up costing the company around $190 million dollars. Disney will hope to make up some of that cash when the film opens in the U.K. on August 9th.