Disney Puts THE LONE RANGER Back on Track!

After Gore Vebinski's film adaptation of The Lone Ranger was put on hold due to a ballooned budget and a story involving Werewolves we weren't sure if Disney would proceed with the project. But, today we've learned that Disney is resolving these issues so that next week they can start rehiring the crew. They now hope  the film will be ready to go into production in January or February of next year. There's no word yet on if the studio still plans to try and get the film released on December 21th 2012.

The movie didn't loose any of it's actors either, Johnny Depp is still set to play Tonto, Armie Hammer will play The Lone Ranger and Ruth Wilson (Luthor) is also expected back as the female lead.

The studio feared that the film could reach a $250 million dollar budget, which is absolutely ridiculous for a western genre film, which The Lone Ranger is. According to Deadline "The cutting process has included the reworking of deals for Depp, Verbinski and Bruckheimer, and trimming the production budget and the long shoot." I honestly don't see why they couldn't make this film for $30 million. Anything above $100 million just seems absolutely ridiculous for a western. 

Disney is spending a lot of money on movies these days though. The Andrew Stanton directed adaptation of John Carter of Mars has a budget of around $250 million, and the Sam Raimi directed film The Great and Powerful Oz is coming in around $200 million. I can see those movie having a high budget, but The Lone Ranger? No. I enjoy Verbinski's films, and think he's a talented director, but if he needs that much money to make this film, maybe Disney needs to rethink it's director. 

It will be interesting to see how this movie actually turns out, what do you think about this whole thing? Is $200 million way too much for a western genre film?