Disney Bows Out of The Johnny Depp-starrer THE LONE RANGER

Source: Deadline

Yet another big budget studio has dropped yer another big budget film and this time the culprit and victim: Disney and The Lone Ranger. Deadline reports that Disney has shut down production on the Gore Verbinski-directed film that was to star Johnny Depp as Tonto and Armie Hammer as the title character. Why you ask? Why else -- because of the reported $250M budget that Disney was trying to reduce for the Jerry Bruckheimer produced pic. The studio were looking for something more in the $200M range. The Lone Ranger was set to begin production in October but the site say money has already been spent in pre-production and between Depp, Bruckheimer and Verbinski, the gross outlay on the film was one that Disney didn't want to take on. The shoot was set for New Mexico.

Disney has several big budget films in production with John Carter and its reported budget of $300m. (I just saw this trailer tonight during Final Five and it looks like a waste of that $300M if you ask me!) The studio also has Oz: The Great and Powerful, the James Franco-starrer which has a reported budget of $200M.

Budget aside, The Lone Ranger had a very good chance of being successful. Super producer Jerry Bruckheimer was behind this project who has a longstanding relationship with Disney and has the Pirates of The Caribbean films and Alice In Wonderland to show his worth. Both Pirates and Wonderland had Johnny Depp in the lead role and he's as sure a thing as any actor in Hollywood. Has three films that have gross over $1 billion dollars at the box office if I remember correctly. And as for the director Gore Verbinski, well he's coming off the massive success of Rango which has grossed $242M worldwide! The film is also considered a front-runner to win an Oscar for Best Animated Film.

The Lone Ranger was scheduled for release on December 21, 2012, that was to be a week after The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will open on December 14th, 2012. World War Z also recently announced it's release date of December 21st, 2012 but it's unclear whether either film factored into Disney's decision. So the next move for the filmmakers are to hope the film gets picked up by another studio which is likely to happen I would think.