Last American Hero...

So the Mouse released the final trailer for their new summer film...

The fourth trailer for Walt Disney Pictures "The Lone Ranger" has come out.  More action, more comedy, more "splosions" and a really wild, Wild West.  The folks in Burbank are betting 200+ million on a genre that has been hit or miss over the past few decades.

Gone are the days when Hollywood studios would crank out Westerns on a weekly basis, because it was printing money.  People would go to see them no matter if they were good, or bad, or the cowboy was singing.  It was a distinctly American genre that defined this nation during the latter part of the Nineteenth century.  It was the emergence of this nation on the world as a place of opportunity, adventure and hope.

Maybe that hope is personified in the adventures of this tale of a masked man out for justice.  He doesn't wear a cape, or fly, or throw a car at someone to smash them.  He fires a bullet, rides a white horse, and wears a white hat.  He's the symbol of a dying breed of film and men.  Cowboys are a part of the film industry and the American past.  We'll see if it rides again this summer.

Remember they said pirate movies were dead a while ago too...

Cowboys At The Superbowl...

At least this one shows more ranger...

Sadly, they didn't make it that far...

But one particular cowboy showed up.  A ranger.  A lone ranger.  Check out Walt Disney Pictures Super Bowl Spot for "The Lone Ranger" that premiered during the Big Game.  It's got a lot of action and a good amount of humor.  Especially that bit near the end.

Gore Verbinski can tell a Western.  He did it before with "Rango" a couple years ago.  So I have faith in him.  The Mouse's marketing department hopefully won't have a problem figuring out how to sell this one to an audience like they did with "John Carter" last year.  They were both Westerns after all.  One just ended up on another planet.

And the other ended up on Johnny Depp...

Don Mask...

Who was that masked man... 

The new (second) trailer for Walt Disney Pictures' "The Lone Ranger" is out...

It's a visually impressive piece of work.  You can clearly see that this is a wild west version of the tale of "Don Quixote" that Verbinski is trying to tell (Which is strange since the Mouse is now working on a version of that tale for Depp.).  Will it work for audiences?  That will be the question that will be answered next summer.  The director knows how to do a western, as he told with the animated film, "Rango".

Come, next summer we'll see if the West rides again...

The Lone Ranger Rides Again, Rides Again...

Ho hi, here we go again...








Well it appears that sanity has come to Burbank...

It this struggling economy, spending well north of a quarter of a billion dollars on a Western was enough to make the Mouse believe that it wasn't worth it. Thank you very much, "Cowboys & Aliens."

But the studio has come to an agreement with the producer, director and stars (what, no writers?) to take a 20% pay cut and defer some of the payments on the back end so as to get the film rolling. Also, any cost overruns will come out of Jerry Bruckheimer's pocket not Disneys. So it appears the production is back on track for shooting to start on February 6, 2012, with the film being released in the summer of the following year, May 31, 2013 to be exact.

Fear not, this is still a budget of over $215 million dollars, sans werewolves and a few other mystical things, but it still has three or four amazingly complex train robberies/crashes that should excite audience amidst the shoot outs. And don't worry about Johnny Depp not looking like an Indian, even though he is part Indian. You won't be able to recognize him if the make up test that they've done are approved. He's going to look like something you've never seen before. Of course, that has the studio a little worried, after all, if you're selling Johnny Depp and he doesn't even look like himself, will the audience not buy a ticket?

Come two years from now we'll likely know, but I like Gore Verbinski and I already know he can pull off a Western since he did "Rango" this year.

Now, let's hope he can turn silver bullets into box office gold...

From High Seas To Wild West...

As we reported here at Blue Sky Disney last year, screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio are in final negotiations to write the reboot of "The Lone Ranger" for Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.

The film is being planned as a tentpole for 2010.

The irony in this is the property was once owned by the Mouse(if you've read the blog much, you know this) and is now owned by Classic Media. Having began as a 30s radio show created by George W. Trendle, the Masked Man quickly moved into serials, a hugely successful TV shows, comic strips, comic books, toys, novels before languishing in the 70's. An earlier reboot in the 1981 was a horrible box office bomb.

Elliott and Rossio will try to breath life into the Ranger the way they were able to remake Pirates into a financial success story. They also turned another loved member of the Old West into a hit with "The Mask of Zorro", although that was not made by Disney(should have been, but that's a story for later).

The project will be made by the Mouse with and Jerry Bruckheimer producing, Mike Stenson and Chad Oman executive producing and Jason Reed is the Suit for Disney.

A note for the "Geek-Challenged": The Lone Ranger also happens to be the grandfather of "The Green Hornet". Fighting crime and working for Justice runs in the family, eh? Now, if the Mouse were smart, they'd get the rights to Green Hornet and make it.