Yesterday at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Walt Disney unveiled about twenty minutes of director Gore Verbinski‘s The Lone Ranger.  Since I was on the red carpet waiting for the cast and filmmakers, I missed the screening.  But talking to a few people that did see the footage, the consensus I heard was that it looked great and it was a lot better than all of them expected.  If you want to judge some of the movie for yourself…watch the brand new trailer that was released yesterday.

Shortly after walking off the stage, I landed a red carpet interview with Verbinski.  We talked about how he decided which footage to show the CinemaCon audience, how long his first cut ran, he reveals that he still doesn’t have a finished cut of the film and doesn’t know how long it’ll be, whether he will ever make another animated film, how much he loved doing Rango, and more.  In addition, I asked if his adaptation of the graphic novel Pyongyang is his next film.  Hit the jump to watch.

Gore Verbinski has been directing blockbuster films for almost a decade, but he may be returning to smaller material.  According to Deadline, Verbinski has teamed with New Regency to direct an adaptation of the graphic novel Pyongyang by Guy Deslisle.  The memoir follows the French-Canadian cartoonist’s travels through North Korea after obtaining a work visa (a rarity for a Westerner) for his job on a children’s cartoon show (I don’t know the name of the show but I assume it was Kim Jong-Il’s Super Fun Time Worship Your Beloved Supreme Leader Happy Hour; that’s a rough translation since my Korean is a little rusty).  Deslisle’s trip becomes more complicated when he’s accused of espionage because of course he is.

This sounds like a fun project for Verbinski, and also a return to his smaller-scale films like The Weather Man and Mouse Hunt.  Hit the jump for a synopsis of the graphic novel.  Verbinski’s next film, The Lone Ranger, opens July 3rd.