Traditionally foreign-language movies have been shown at the Taormina Film Festival with Italian subtitles. The subtitles prepared by translators who offer professional translation for Italian were suitable for the local moviegoers, and tourists could enjoy the movies in the original language. This year Lone Ranger was screened at the Taormina Film Festival in the Italian language. Instead of having a professional translator create Italian subtitles, Disney had dubbed the entire movie. The event organizers were surprised that the copy of the film was dubbed into the local language and had no subtitles. This version favored an audience that spoke the Italian language but was unfriendly to tourists who were in Italy at the time of the screening. Apparently Disney had promised to supply them an original-language copy of the movie with Italian subtitles, which had been added by Italian translation services providers. The festival had created promotional posters stating that the movie would be screened in the English language.
The festival officials had to make last minute changes to the ads. They used markers to write this information by hand in English. Professional translation for Italian was necessary to translate the text for the local moviegoers. In Los Angeles a Disney representative claimed that they had never made any promises regarding the language of the film. They had always planned to dub Lone Ranger and hence never considered Italian subtitles for the festival. This was the first time in a long time that a dubbed movie was shown at the Taormina Film Festival. Other foreign films including American ones were always in the original English with translated subtitles for Italian speakers. Some suggest that they used professional translation for Italian to reduce the chances of piracy, which has been a major issue surrounded the screening of foreign films at such festivals. People are less likely to copy the material if it is translated from English.
The festival planners said that they had to refund some ticket purchasers to non-Italian speaking tourists who had expected the English version of the film. The tourists showed little appreciation for the efforts of translators who had provided professional Italian translation services to make the movie more enjoyable for the viewers in Italy. However, overall it appears as if the Italian version screened at the Teatro Antico venue attracted more local moviegoers. Since in Italy filmgoers are more accustomed to watching dubbed movies, they were satisfied with this version of Lone Ranger. Tourists who did not need professional translation for Italian to enjoy this movie were only a small percentage of people who purchased tickets.
