“It’s our intention to take a careful look at what films cost,” Disney CEO Robert Iger said last August when budget issues with the studio’s reboot of ‘The Lone Ranger’ hit the trades. About that: after trimming the budget for the Johnny Depp-led ‘Lone Ranger’ from $250 million to a more manageable $215 million, the film’s costs are back up to the quarter-billion dollar mark, reports THR. “It’s out of control,” said an unnamed insider to THR. ‘The Lone Ranger’, which started shooting in New Mexico back in February is apparently weeks behind its schedule with script rewrites already underway. (For its part, Disney claims the $250 million budget number is not true.) Directed by Gore Verbinski (‘Pirates of the Caribbean’) and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, ‘The Lone Ranger’ stars Depp as Tonto, Armie Hammer as the titular hero, and Helena Bonham Carter. It was originally scheduled for release on December 23, but was shifted to next summer. Ironically, both ‘Lone Ranger’ and the equally troubled ‘World War Z’ were both set to hit theatres on the same day this year. Already off to an auspicious start, ‘The Lone Ranger’ could be another high-profile bust for Disney. The studio took a massive loss on the $250 million-budgeted ‘John Carter’ earlier this year. Fortunately, the studio earned quite a windfall on ‘Marvel’s The Avengers’, which is the third-highest grossing movie of all time.
