Disney’s The Lone Ranger hasn’t exactly had an easy road to production. After the rights to the feature iteration of the classic television story changed hands a few times, they ended up with Jerry Bruckheimer at Disney with a script by Pirates of the Caribbean scribes Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio. Naturally, Johnny Depp was brought on to play Tonto, and director Gore Verbinski was hired to take the helm. Production hit a snag when the budget ballooned to a reported $250 million, but after Bruckheimer, Depp, and Verbinski put their heads together, some trimming was done and the film was back on track with Armie Hammer as the titular ranger and Tom Wilkinson as the film's villain.Bruckheimer has provided a new production update on the now-filming Lone Ranger, revealing that they’re incredibly close to the end of principal photography after a whopping 125 days of shooting. He also shared some gorgeous photos from the New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Arizona sets. Hit the jump for more.
In addition to the production update, Bruckheimer shared some images from the film’s sets. One such image is of a train track, and the producer revealed that they custom built 5 miles of train tracks in a circle, so that they wouldn’t have to stop filming to turn the train around. Disney revealed the first footage from the film at Comic-Con, and Matt noted that the story is heavily centered on trains.Anyway, here’s the full production update from Bruckheimer’s blog, followed by the images. The Lone Ranger opens on July 3rd, 2013.
Almost done with filming of The Lone Ranger. 125 days of shooting seemed to fly by. Â We dealt with winds up to 70 mph, rain, snow, Â and even wildfires but nothing has stopped us from filming this incredible movie.
The cast has been absolutely amazing and we could not have asked for a better crew. Everyone has been extremely dedicated in making this film a major success. We have a few more filming days back in California and then post-production goes into high gear. Before we know it, it will be July 3rd, 2013 and we can’t wait to share this incredible film with everyone.
Until then, here are a few photos of our time in New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Arizona.