Revolutionary Road Screenwriter To Adapt The Lone Ranger

In 2007, it was announced that Jerry Bruckheimer would be producing a new adaptation of The Lone Ranger, with Pirates of the Caribbean/Shrek screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio penning the script. A year later, in 2008, it was revealed that Johnny Depp had been cast as Tonto, and George Clooney was rumored to be in talks to play The Lone Ranger. Over the summer it was rumored that Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Donnie Brasco, Prince of Persia) was in talks to direct. We haven't heard anything since August... until now.

Heat Vision is now reporting that a new screenwriter is in negotiations to write a new draft of the project. Justin Haythe, who adapted Revolutionary Road, is in talks to come aboard the project. Haythe was most recently working with Walt Disney Pictures on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo before a recent change in staff put the project in the trash. Haythe also wrote the screenplay for the 2004 dramatic thriller The Clearing, and was developing a modern day take of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of the scientist Dr. Jekyll and his monstrous alter-ego, Mr. Hyde, titled Jekyll and starring Keanu Reeves.

Adapted from the 1930's radio show, which later became a popular live-action television show in the 1950's. The Lone Ranger is a masked Texas Ranger in the American Old West, who gallops about righting injustices, usually with the aid of a clever and laconic American Indian sidekick called Tonto, and his horse Silver. He would famously say "Hi-yo Silver, away!" to get the horse to gallop. Hollywood has tried to remake the Lone Ranger twice now, a 1981 film titled The Legend of the Lone Ranger and a 2003 WB television movie/pilot, both of which were not well accepted.