Bruckheimer and Verbinski Bringing Back The Lone Ranger

May 24, 2007
Source: Collider.com
by Alex Billington

A news scoop from our friends over at Collider.com claims that Jerry Bruckheimer and the team behind Pirates of the Caribbean will be moving onto a western next - The Lone Ranger. Could it really be true? The rumor is that not only producer Jerry Bruckheimer, but director Gore Verbinski, and screenwriting team Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, would again be taking on this project together. They're trying to give it a "revamp", so to say, and I'm guessing turn it into the next three-part series like Pirates of the Caribbean, but can they pull it off with a pretty dang old western?

The Lone Ranger is a television and radio show that premiered first in 1933, and is about a masked crime fighting Texas Ranger and his Indian sidekick Tonto. The hero was last seen on screen in 1981 in The Legend of the Lone Ranger, and in 2003 the WB network ran a TV movie / series pilot that became a flop.

Looking at Verbinski's directorial choices, he's jumped through almost every genre anyway: horror, family, action/adventure, drama. I guess the only big one he's missing might be westerns, or romance. As with screenwriters Elliott and Rossio, a few journalists have their gripes with their stale Pirates scripts, but so far I don't mind what they've done to make that series as successful as it is.

The movie site CHUD.com has a great article looking at why it's possible The Lone Ranger could make a good comeback: "boomers grew up watching the serials on television, their kids grew up listening to them prattle on about watching the serials on television" and so on. I, for one, will probably be one of the toughest to pitch a new western idea on, as I've disliked westerns for my entire life. And putting into consideration what was said at CHUD, a series that old will be hard to restart, even with a fresh and modern concept.

We still have yet to see and we still have to confirm this rumor that Bruckheimer and Verbinski will be back together with Elliott and Rossio, but it may be an interesting experiment in shocking another dead genre back to life - if it's successful.

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