'Lone Ranger' Costing a Ton, Taking Forever, Needing More Cuts and Rewrites

A dark shadow looms over The Lone Ranger, and it's not just from the bird Johnny Depp thought would make for a psychologically-complex hat.

The Gore Verbinski film, already delayed for months in order to trim the budget from $250 million to a slightly less spit-take-ridiculous $215 million, is now, nearly four months into a production only scheduled for 120 days, back to being a $250+ million film. Before shooting even began, Verbinski cut a big train set piece and, supposedly, some CGI werewolves from the movie in order to get its costs down, but THR's sources claim he's now going to have to make further cuts that are demanding some script rewrites.

The reason for these issues? Apparently, both Terry Gilliam-level natural disasters and Verbinski's insistence that only newly-built old trains be used. Those close to the production say wind and dust storms have torn apart the New Mexico sets and, one would assume, blown away several of Depps winged headdresses. Additionally, "period trains are a huge element in the movie, say sources, and Verbinski opted for the production to construct its own locomotives from scratch rather than employ existing railroad vehicles." This guy loves new choo-choos! Thankfully, Amtrak continues to pour very little money into new trains but a bizarre amount of cash into CGI werewolf creation, so maybe some kind of trade-off can be worked out.