THE LONE RANGER moving ahead with a tighter budget

Disney is finally moving ahead Gore Verbilnski's The Lone Ranger. Deadline reports that the studio has agreed on a budget with Verbinski, Johnny Depp and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Depp wil star as Tonto, with Armie Hammer as the title character. It is not known if Disney was able to keep the scheduled December 21 release date because production won’t start in New Mexico until early next year.

The film was plannned to start shooting this fall, but came to a halt after the studio feared the budget was inching to reach between $250 million-$275 million. Cowboys & Aliens' bad box office take cause a lot of concern for this project as well. The budget has been brought downn to a much more manageble $215 million range, and the original team in place.

I personally think that $215 is way too much money for a Western, but I am not signing the checks. What are your thoughts?