Dwight Yoakam Saddles Up To Fight THE LONE RANGER!

Country musician and effective big screen villain (David Fincher used him perfectly as the baddie Raoul in Panic Room) - Dwight Yoakam has been cast to play Butch Cavendish, the villain of Disney's The Lone Ranger! Played by Glenn Strange in episodes of the original show and Christopher Lloyd in the 1981 film, Cavendish is regularly cited as being heavily involved in the origins of The Lone Ranger - so I guess we now have a good idea of how this film will play out. Yoakam will play the leader of a wild ragtag gang who cause havok across the Wild West, killing and robbing in every town they come across, including slaughtering a bunch of Texas Rangers in what I presume will be the film's opening, leaving just one alive, Reid. He is then nursed back to health by Tonto and made strong.... and they then set out to take revenge upon Yoakam and his gang. It's typical, Old West genre/superhero origin stuff. Butch will be a run-of-the-mill cowboy baddie and Dwight Yoakam will play him with some relish. It's the kind of role he was born for and let's remember, director Gore Verbinski cast Geoffrey Rush to play a routine villain of the seven seas in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and he turned in such an iconic performance! Verbinski has a knack for casting and this movie looks particularly strong with The Social Network's Armie Hammer as The Lone Ranger, Johnny Depp as the native American sidekick Tonto, with Luther actress Ruth Wilson as the love interest and Tom Wilkinson as a railroad tycoon (probably a villain comparable with the British Royal navy in POTC). Variety reports that the supporting cast is coming together with Helena Bonham Carter, Barry Pepper and James Badge Dale also circling roles. As we've said above, if you look at what Gore Verbinski did with the Pirates series he made the supporting cast a huge part of the original trilogy in their own right, casting terrific Brit characters actors that elevated the historical background of the universe. We are hoping for the same here... (all these actors in talks and I don't believe the deals are confirmed yet) Pepper, who recently was gunned down by Rooster Cogburn and in True Grit, would play Captain J. Fuller, the leader of the seventh cavalry... James Badge Dale who is suddenly now a film star having come to prominence last year with his t.v. shows The Pacific and Rubicon would play Dan Reid, the older brother of and the leader of the Texas Rangers.... Helena Bonham Carter has been set to play the madam of a brothel and clearly it's Depp who has brought his great friend to the table here. The pair are currently working together on Tim Burton's Dark Shadows... Filming on The Lone Ranger will begin in the fall with Verbinski working from a script originally drafted by POTC scribes Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott but then re-drafted by Justin Haythe (Revolutionary Road). The film itself is due Dec 21st, 2012.