Verbinski gets the greenlight on Lone Ranger remake

The Ring 
and
 
Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski is set to bring a television legend back to life. Deadline reports that Disney has officially appointed the director to helm the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced remake of 50’s TV classic, The Lone Ranger. The series followed the exploits of masked Texas Ranger, John Reid (Clayton Moore), and his sidekick Tonto (Jay Silverheels) as they rode across the Wild West, righting wrongs and helping the vulnerable. 

Johnny Depp was an ace in Verbinski’s pocket as Jack Sparrow in the highly successful Pirates trilogy, and may be again, this time playing the faithful Apache Indian, Tonto. Depp certainly has the cheekbones to play a Native American, the most telling feature of the actor’s Cherokee heritage. This marks the second time Verbinski and Depp will ride into the West together, the first being their recent collaboration on 2011’s 
Rango
, an animated feature starring a Hunter S. Thompson-resembling chameleon who longs for adventure and finds it in a Western town beset by bandits.

This is one remake that sounds exciting to me, even if I’m not very familiar with the Lone Ranger mythos. The Coen brothers have already whet my appetite for Western-set…

The Ring and Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski is set to bring a television legend back to life. Deadline reports that Disney has officially appointed the director to helm the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced remake of 50's TV classic, The Lone Ranger. The series followed the exploits of masked Texas Ranger, John Reid (Clayton Moore), and his sidekick Tonto (Jay Silverheels) as they rode across the Wild West, righting wrongs and helping the vulnerable. 

Johnny Depp was an ace in Verbinski's pocket as Jack Sparrow in the highly successful Pirates trilogy, and may be again, this time playing the faithful Apache Indian, Tonto. Depp certainly has the cheekbones to play a Native American, the most telling feature of the actor's Cherokee heritage. This marks the second time Verbinski and Depp will ride into the West together, the first being their recent collaboration on 2011's Rango, an animated feature starring a Hunter S. Thompson-resembling chameleon who longs for adventure and finds it in a Western town beset by bandits.

This is one remake that sounds exciting to me, even if I'm not very familiar with the Lone Ranger mythos. The Coen brothers have already whet my appetite for Western-set films with No Country for Old Men and their upcoming True Grit remake. Cowboys & Aliens is yet another hotly anticipated Old West adventure, albeit, set in an alternative West. I am ready to have my grandpa's favourite movies and characters remade for me, and Verbinski's The Lone Ranger could provide all the fun and fanfare I'm looking for. No word yet on who will play the masked man, but here's hoping that he can strike a balance between humour and pathos. Based on Verbinski's track record, which also includes comedic credits The Weather Man and The Mexican, I predict that The Lone Ranger will be an action-comedy extravaganza on the scale of his earlier work for Disney.

[via Deadline]