Jerry Bruckheimer is most certainly looking for his next big franchise series. We already know that he has setup the adaptation of the video game Prince of Persia over at Disney which if it falls into the right directing hands will be a summer blockbuster tentpole with the potential of making huge, huge, money. Now comes an unconfirmed report from Entertainment Weekly that he has set Pirates of the Caribbean writers Ted Elliott & Terry Russio the job of writing a new screenplay for The Lone Ranger, which Bruckheimer hopes will eventually be setup at Disney. None of this is unconfirmed as yet but it's still pretty exciting...
With a cool title and lead character, The Lone Ranger was a long running radio & t.v. show created by George W. Trendle that followed a masked Texas Ranger who alongside his clever Indian sidekick Tonto and his horse Silver, would serve to fight off evil and injustices. The Lone Ranger's theme tune and his regular catchphrase of "Hi-Yo Silver, Away" have secured the characters place in popular culture, even though many probably don't realise where the term belongs. Originating 74 years ago and preceding the character of Batman, The Lone Ranger began life as a radio serial which ran between 1933 and 1954. After spawning a spin-off show which would become the very famous and popular character The Green Hornet (who is said to be the son of The Lone Ranger), the most famous of The Longer Ranger medium would be the mid 50's television series.
Starring Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels as Tonto, the series ran for an unprecedented and unbroken 78 weekly episodes, which went down in history as the first Western show ever made for television. The show was a huge hit on the ABC network which used the show as it's flagship programming during it's barren years. After the first run of 78 episodes, the producers wanted to sign Moore up to a second batch of 52 weekly episodes, but whether it was down to Moore wanting more money or as the actor claimed until his death in 1999 over creative differences, the fact was that John Hart took over The Lone Ranger mantle. The producers thought it wouldn't be so hard to replace a masked character despite the huge popularity of Clayton Moore, but the public never got comfortable with Hart and the ratings began to fall dramatically. George Trendle, the creator of The Lone Ranger would then sell the rights of the series over to Jack Wrather in August 1954, where he immediately appeased fans by re-hiring Moore and producing another 52 episodic weekly series, and later a final series consisting of 39 episodes with two feature movies The Lone Ranger (1956) and The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1958)...
After television re-runs of the last series were popular, just four years after it's cancellation CBS attempted to get a new Ranger series off the ground but a pilot was as far as it got. Some twenty years later, in 1981 the character would return once again in The Legend of the Lone Ranger after years of rumor that a big movie production was inevitable with so many twenty-thirty somethings growing up with the series in the 50's. But the film got off to a terrible start when the studio made a public relations nightmare decision by banning Clayton Moore, a now elderly star of yesteryear from appearing in the media or in public in costume. This was something that outraged many and the backlash against the film was evident.
The big budget movie saw Klinton Spilsbury flop as the title character (he would never be seen on film or t.v. again) and his dialogue even had to be dubbed. Despite cinematography from the well respected Lazlo Kovacs, a musical score from Bond composer John Barry and big roles for the main villain Jason Robards and Christopher Lloyd, the film was a disaster and despite it being hyped as one of the big movies of the year, it didn't even make the top 50 for box office returns in 1981. It was the same year a certain Harrison Ford showed how lone adventurer movies should be done with Raiders of the Lost Ark and attention soon turned towards him as the new and more relatable modern day hero. The Lone Ranger then would descend back into the wilderness until recently recieving probably it's biggest revival in 25 years when a newly produced comic book series on the character from Dynamite Entertainment won the 2007 Eisner Award for best new series. This was the first time a second printing had to ever be issued from Dynamite as the first issue sold out straight away though many fans of the original depiction of the character are worried about the amount of violence depicted.
Could it work? Well this adventuring genre is always popular but I think it's pretty obvious that the character would need to go through a big tweaking if it was to work on film once again. And if they can secure Disney and the talents of director Gore Verbinski (who after watching POTC 3, I think he is in desperate need of something fresh) then I think this could be a fantastic movie. I love these types of lone characters, all the way from Batman, Sinbad, Lone Ranger, Indiana Jones to Jack Sparrow. Some folks have touted Nathan Fillion for the role of The Lone Ranger. Ya know, I've said it before... with a talented director and a big budget movie, Fillion could do a terrific blockbuster series character such as this. source - slash film
Matt Holmes is the co-founder of What Culture, formerly known as Obsessed With Film. He has been blogging about pop culture and entertainment since 2006 and has written over 10,000 articles.
