After a public struggle between Disney and director Gore Verbinski to bring down the budget for The Lone Ranger, it appears the two sides have found a way to move forward and are eyeing an early 2012 start date. Deadline reports that in order for Verbinski, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and star Johnny Depp (who is playing Tonto), “the cutting process has included the reworking of deals…and trimming the production budget and the long shoot.” It looks like Disney decided that they’d rather make an expensive movie with Depp and acquiesce to his demand of keeping Verbinski rather than scrapping the project all together. If you’re wondering what real star power looks like, that’s it.
Armie Hammer is still on board to play the title character and Ruth Wilson (Luther) is still likely to play the female lead. It’s unknown if other actors who were cast—Helena Bonham Carter, Dwight Yoakam, Barry Pepper, and Tom Wilkinson—are still on board or if the new start date has created a scheduling conflict. It’s also unknown if Disney will try to hold onto its original December 21, 2012 release date, but I think that’s a highly-optimistic time crunch for a movie that with a budget of $215 million. Mr. Verbinski loves his special effects and making FX houses work overtime to get the movie finished by December will only cost Disney more money.
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what the hell are they spending so much money on production-wise???!! I can see Depp’s price tag alone upping the budget considerably but that’s one expensive western flick regardless.
Fuck, I was hoping this was never going to see the light of day. Perfect example of Hollywood over-indulgence.
You kidding me!? What could possibly cost that much in a western movie? Seriously. What are they resurection John Waynes Horse Ol’ Dollar from the dead!?
james bond movies(and this one will too,i guess)start filming in january and they are finished by ocober.so i dont think january-december timeline is impossible not to mention “highly-optimistic time crunch” as you said.it should be no problem.
If this movie comes out and flops worse than Cowboys & Aliens, i’m gonna go to the empty theater just to laugh my ass off!
Every time that I hear about this movie, I pray to God that I’m only dreaming and that the nightmare will be over soon.
I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again: People are tired of films and TV shows with too much special effects and not enough depth in the story. Even the kids are sick of them.
Here’s something supporting this assertion that Disney can consider before moving ahead: a series of article by Mike Cobley on how both atrocities destroyed ITV’s Primeval:
http://rockitboy.wordpress.com/tag/primeval/
If $10 million budget can do that much damage, expect a billion times more damage with a $200 million budget.
ScreenRant is saying that the budget being so huge is because there will be Werewolves in the movie. What the hell, Johnny Depp. What the hell.