SHOCKER! Disney Halts 'The Lone Ranger' With Johnny Depp And Gore Verbinski

Deadline ^ | August 12, 2011 | By MIKE FLEMING

[tlb]

In a stunning development, Disney has shut down production on The Lone Ranger, the Gore Verbinski-directed period Western that was to star Johnny Depp as Tonto and Armie Hammer as the title character. Jerry Bruckheimer is the producer and the script is by Justin Haythe.

I'm told this all just happened, and Disney pulled the plug because of the budget. I've heard the filmmakers were trying to reduce the film's cost from $250 million (some even say $275 million) down to $232 million.

The Lone Ranger was scheduled to be released December 21, 2012, smack up against The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which opens December 14, and the Brad Pitt-starrer World War Z, which was just slated for December 21.

This had to be an incredibly tough call for Disney's Rich Ross and Sean Bailey, but they have several huge live-action bets on the table already. Budgetbusters include John Carter, the Andrew Stanton-directed adaptation of John Carter of Mars with Friday Night Lights' Taylor Kitsch in the lead role, has a budget that has ballooned because of extensive re-shoots, and The Great and Powerful Oz, the Sam Raimi-directed James Franco-starrer.

The Lone Ranger has a long history, but Disney counted on Depp to make it relevant with a comedic twist.

[tal hajus]

Great!! Been a fan of John Carter for YEARS!!! Wonder who they’ll get to play Dejah? BTW Frazetta could sure draw.

[count-your-change]

Too bad that Heath guy isn’t around, they could have another homosexual on the Ranger movie.

[blueunicorn6]

They’re not from India....they’re from China.

[Bean Counter]

[Bean Counter]

[Erasmus]

(I hope nobody has told this one downthread...)

The Lone Ranger and Tonto are in one of their predicaments vis-a-vis the bad guys.

They’re holed up behind a boulder at the head of a dead-end canyon, and a platoon of angry Native Americans have them cornered.

LR turns to T and says, “Tonto, you’ve been my guide and my faithful friend for many years; I just wanted to say that, now that it seems we are at the end of our road.”

“What mean, ‘we,’ white man?”

[Rocky]

I’ve watched the filming of several TV shows and movies on location, and there are a lot of people just standing around all day. You know they’re getting paid, but it’s hard to see what they’re contributing.

[Young Werther]

When it was discovered that we had the first TV in the neighborhood we became the best folks on the block. Every Firday and Saturday night there would be a knock on the door and in came our neighbors bearing goodies.

Coke, popcorn, buns and ice tea flooded our dining room. Kids sat on the floor and were told, "No crumbs on the floor!" I said "But Howie is my friend!"

Fortunately my Mom and Dad were jokesters extradordinaire!

[PapaBear3625]

It might be funnier if they cast Jackie Chan as Tonto.

[Free_SJersey]

I get work occasionally on movies and TV shows. I'm not in the union but get scale wages when I do. The start of my favorite call was meeting the lighting director at 9AM and he told a group of us to go hang out in the canteen (great food) until they called for us. At two in the afternoon, ten of us were herded into a van and taken about two blocks to a refinery. Inside a trailer we were shown a fifteen minute safety film about working in a refinery (which was shut down for maintenance) and then hung out until about six when the generator truck and the lights arrived. For the next two hours, we ran cable and positioned lights on the the cracking towers and such. When we were done, a pickup truck brought out dinners and we were told to keep out of sight. At eleven thirty, we were told the sequence was being filmed and at eleven forty were told to wrap. Cables, lights and various paraphernalia we on the trucks in forty-five minutes. At 1AM a van took us to the staging area where we waited until two for another van to take us to our cars. I made almost $700 for the day.

Here's the kicker. The refinery was 3/4 of a mile from the primary shot, was visible in two shots of the movie for a total of 15 seconds and was just a slightly out of focus background.

[Rocky]

LOL! That’s a great story. And I’ll bet anyone who’s in the business has stories like that.

Years ago, I watched a TV show being filmed on the beach. It was a musical/variety show (they haven’t had any of those in years). One of the guys was in a suit and all he did was stand by his car all afternoon holding a metal reflector up under his chin so that he could get a tan on his face, including his neck and under his chin.

There were probably thirty or forty people working for the studio there and the whole thing, which took all afternoon, was to film an old one-hit rock performer lip-synching to a 2-minute song while he got out of a fancy sports car and walked past girls in bikinis bouncing beach balls in the air.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 8/13/2011. Thanks tlb.