Johnny Depp is on forced hiatus after Walt Disney Studios shut down production of big-budget film The Lone Ranger.
The high-profile actor is cast in the role of Tonto in the modern version of the 1949 television western. Unfortunately, the studio has put a halt to the project until the filmmakers can reduced the $250 million budget by twenty percent.
Disney CEO Bob Iger said: “It is our intention to take a very careful look at what films cost. And if we can’t get them to a level that we’re comfortable with, we think that we’re better off actually reducing the size of our slate than making films that are bigger and increasingly more risky.”
Depp has been the studio’s most bankable actor in recent years. His films Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Alice in Wonderland reaped more than a billion dollars at the box office worldwide.
The Lone Ranger was tentatively slated for December 21, 2012 release. The future of the flick remains uncertain.
Photo: WENN