Budgetary Issue Forces Disney to Shut Down 'Lone Ranger'

Walt Disney Pictures have shut down the production of Johnny Depp-starring adventure film "The Lone Ranger" due to budgetary issue. It was said that director Gore Verbinski and the production team have tried to reduce the budget from $250 million to $232 million, but it is still far from the $200 million the studio wanted the project to spend. 


Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger said in a statement on Tuesday, August 9 that the Burbank studio are very concerned to film budgets. "It's our intention to take a very careful look at what films cost," he said. 


Iger went on explaining, "And if we can't get them to a level that we're comfortable with, we think that we're better off actually reducing the size of our slate than making films that are bigger and increasingly more risky." 


Beside the budgetary problem that made Verbinski clash with the executives of Disney, it was reported that the studio also considered although the project involves a big star like Depp, the genre which highlights a Western theme is not suitable for the studio. "The fact that it's a Western is a definite concern," said a source to The HollywoodReporter. 


"The Lone Ranger" was dubbed as a potential big film coming out at the end of 2012. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, the project has locked Depp to play Tonto and Armie Hammer as the titular character. 


This is actually not the first time Verbinski gets involved in a disagreement with Disney. He previously clashed the executives of the studio over the cost for "Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End". The problem led him to walk out from the franchise and not direct "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides". 

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