In the latest example of the studios’ insatiable hunger for sequel-ready franchises, Entertainment Weekly reports that Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer are saddling up for a Lone Ranger movie.
According to EW, “Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot are working on a draft” for Bruckheimer and Disney. Although the studio won’t confirm the writers’ involvement, it makes sense; Rossio and Elliot were the duo behind the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy that just finished grossing obscene sums of money for Disney. A Lone Ranger timeline, courtesy of EW:
Adapted from a 1930s radio show, The Lone Ranger was a live-action television show popular in the 1950s. It featured a masked Texas Ranger in the old West who relied on his Native American sidekick, Tonto. A 1981 flop film adaptation, The Legend of the Lone Ranger, failed to make a household name out of Klinton Spilsbury. More recently, The WB tried to launch a TV version of the tale, starring One Tree Hill’s Chad Michael Murray, but it never made it to series. If this new script will ever reach the big screen is anyone’s guess, but predicting which actor will get to utter the Ranger’s popular catchphrase, “Hi-Ho Silver, Away” should lead to fun online chatter.
On that last count, EW is absolutely right; in fact, placing bets on the casting might wind up being the only fun thing about a Lone Ranger movie. It seems likely that the writers’ strike could send this thing into limbo, but why wait for development to heat up? Let’s start talkin’ Tonto!
Source: Entertainment Weekly
