Gore Verbinski Confirmed To Direct Johnny Depp In ‘The Lone Ranger’
The Lone Rangerhas been slowly picking a path back to movie screens. In September word filtered out thatPirates of the CaribbeandirectorGore Verbinskiwasin talksto direct a new version of the story for producerJerry Bruckheimer, withJohnny Deppin the cast.
Now it is official: Disney is moving forward on Gore Verbinski’sThe Lone Ranger.
No word yet on who’ll play the Lone Ranger; Johnny Depp is set to play Tonto, the native warrior who finds the wounded ranger and keeps him alive.
Justin Haythewrote the script, and we don’t know at this point how closely it sticks to the classic story in which the title character is one of several Texas Rangers chasing the outlaw Butch Cavendish and his men. The rangers are ambushed and most are killed, but Tonto finds and rescues the man who will become the masked avenger The Lone Rander.
There’s no start date for the film yet.
Previously, from Peter:
The project was initiallyannouncedin 2007, with producerJerry Bruckheimerand Pirates of the Caribbean/Shrek screenwritersTed ElliottandTerry Rossiopenning the script. A year later, in 2008, it wasrevealedthat Johnny Depp had been cast as Tonto, and George Clooney wasrumoredto be in talks to play the title character. Last summer it wasrumoredthatMike Newell(Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Donnie Brasco, Prince of Persia) was in talks to direct, which clearly isn’t happening now. And in February, the mouse house hiredJustin Haythe, who adaptedRevolutionary Road, to pen a draft. Haythe was most recently working with Walt Disney Pictures on20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemobefore a recent change in staff put the project in the trash.
Adapted from the 1930?s radio show, which later became a popular live-action television show in the 1950?s.The Lone Rangeris a masked Texas Ranger in the American Old West, who gallops about righting injustices, usually with the aid of a clever and laconic American Indian sidekick called Tonto, and his horse Silver. He would famously say “Hi-yo Silver, away!” to get the horse to gallop. Hollywood has tried to remake the Lone Ranger twice now, a 1981 film titledThe Legend of the Lone Rangerand a 2003 WB television movie/pilot, both of which were not well accepted.
