A few weeks ago Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski officially signed on to direct The Lone Ranger for Disney, with Johnny Depp set to play the characters Native American companion Tonto. There has been no word so far on who will play the title character, but Depp recently revealed a few of his choices, and you may be familiar with them.
From ET:
“There’s so many interesting possibilities out there,” he tells ET. “Brad [Pitt] would be great. [George] Clooney would be great. Don’t know who it’s going to be just yet.”
Johnny, whose maternal grandfather is Cherokee, wants to portray Native American Indians in a different light than traditional Hollywood films. “Native Americans in cinema, over the past however many decades, have been treated somewhat shabbily,” he says to put it mildly. “This one has plans to rectify that.”
I doubt Disney would have a problem with either, considering how much $$$ they stand to make from such a pairing (the majority of which would be from the females, no doubt).
No word on a start date yet, although Depp will be re-teaming with his other director friend Tim Burton next April for Dark Shadows, so it won’t start until the actor his finished work on that.
Here’s the synopsis for the old draft written by Pirates scribes Ted Elliott’s and Terry Rossio’s draft, although new writer Justin Haythe may have re-written it or just started anew:
The Texas Rangers chase down a gang of outlaws led by Butch Cavendish, but the gang ambushes the Rangers, seemingly killing them all. One survivor is found, however, by an American Indian named Tonto, who nurses him back to health. The Ranger, donning a mask and riding a white stallion named Silver, teams up with Tonto to bring the unscrupulous gang and others of that ilk to justice.
