Bad news: http://www.deadline.com/2011/08/shoc...s-lone-ranger/

well that sucks

What?? That is a blessing in disguise.. That had shit written all over it..

Depp plays the same character in every movie it seems now.. Would of been a cracked out side kick prancing around Tonto to his masked homo ranger..

Meh. I think it would have been fine. I was looking forward to it.

I'm not heartbroken. By all accounts this was gonna be 'Lone Ranger' ala 'Pirates of the Caribbean.' I really want to see a dark and edgy version of the Lone Ranger ala 'Batman.'

It's not that bad it's just the western genre has been more recently overplayed and overdone(hello cowboys and aliens). They're actually taking the IP and going to spin it as a modern update to the storyline. Instead of it being a storyline about an old lawman fighting in the west, it's going to be about a super secret stealth pilot fighting terrorism in today's age. Think flying Knight Rider with the plane instead of Tonto.

That sucks....hard to believe a western would cost 250 mil.."WTF?

It's Bruckheimer. He can't put together a movie for less than that.

Well, now we know why it was going to cost so much......apparantly it was going to feature CGI werewolves and such.....:facepalm: If this this true, im glad they shut it down. IMO it needs to be low tech like Zorro or Indiana Jones.


http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2011/...s_with_wer.php


The reason The Lone Ranger's budget was so astronomically high that Disney execs decided to shut it down was because it's an effects-heavy CG thing due to being a kind of an Indian-spirituality werewolf movie -- a.k.a., The Lone Ranger Meets the Wolfman. Yes, I'm serious. A 3.29.09 draft of Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio's script makes it clear it was going to be at least partly about some kind of Native American wolfbeast tearing victims apart and leaving a bloody mess.

Don't take my word for it -- look at the below photo capture of page 61 of Elliott and Rossio's draft.

"It was always going to be a big Bruckheimer CG movie with traditional Bruckheimer elements with an eye toward being a tentpole, totally Pirates-style," says a gadfly screenwriter who always hears stuff and has been following the project through postings on writersactionbss.com -- a private writers' website that Elliott has posted on.

"It was never going to be a semi-traditional western...it was never going to be Zorro," he says.

"It was going to be a Tonto show mainly. Tonto as the top dog and more dominant than the Lone Ranger. Tonto and the Indian spirits like Obi Wan Kenobi and the force. The driving engine was going to be Native American occult aspects worked in with werewolves and special effects. But flavored with doses of Native American spirituality in a serious way.

"But then Cowboys & Aliens came along and tanked and Disney got cold tenderfeet, spooked by the idea of a pricey mashup. If Cowboys & Aliens had made $200 million, this wouldn't be happening. A Bruckheimer-style western in the wake of Cowboys & Aliens is nothing anyone is feeling secure about at this stage. Trust me, the writers of tentpole garbage are all scared now."

The success of Rise of the Planets of the Apes with its relatively low cost (at least compared to The Lone Ranger) and no big stars has also colored the mentality out there, I'm hearing. Who needs big payday players? Studios do, obviously, but they'd love to get rid of them. Because they want bigger profit margins. Simple

The most interesting angle for me is the story about Depp taking the Native American spiritual stuff seriously, and how he didn't want to camp it up like Captain Jack. He wants his role to honor Native American culture and its spiritual foundations.

"Depp's interest in playing Tonto is about fulfilling his Marlon Brando legacy," the director-writer believes. "Deep is partly Native American himself and he was partly mentored by Brando, who was a big Indians' rights advocate. So he didn't want to do any kind of jaunty performance that plays it light and spoofy with the Native American thing. No Captain Jack crap this time around."

Justin Haythe was the latest Lone Ranger screenwriter. His Revolutonary Road work suggests be was brought in to class things up a bit and perhaps raise the solemnity levels.

But the film was always going to have a theme that could be summed up as "Tonto knows best."

Almost three years ago on writeractionbbs.com, Ted Elliott was asked who will be playing the Lone Ranger, and without posting his exact quote he said that while the Lone Ranger character is the lead, any actor might be concerned about Tonto's character overshadowing the Ranger's, given the casting.

Which is why the up-and-coming but new-to-the-game Armie Hammer was a perfect fit as The Lone Ranger.
It wouldn't be out of character for nervous-nelly Disney executives, prior to the shutdown, to be concerned about Quentin Tarantino's forthcoming Django Unchained, a totally flip, revisionist and goofy-ass downmarket western with Kevin Costner as a villain, and on the other hand you have Depp as Tonto playing it more or less straight....how would that shake out as they opened more or less in the same time period?

Good. I'm completely worn out of Hollywood remakes. Surely there is something original out there Bruckheimer and company to work on.

Originality. Don't they need to get moving on CSI: Tacoma or something?

Wow!

Hollywood stinks. :shake:

Kenny powers should play the Lone ranger.

Me and Tonto just ****ed you up dude.

I would watch that.

Otherwise.. meh.

I can still imagine Burton getting his hands on this and destroying it the same way he destroys everything else. Then they could get that pillowbitergot Danny Elfman to come in and make the theme sound like something out of a ****ing fairy circus. Not that a 21st century Hollywood adaptation of The Lone Ranger had much chance to begin with....