Producer Jerry Bruckheimer discusses wrangling the budget to get Johnny Depp’s The Lone Ranger made

Based on the last PIRATES movie and Disney’s admitted disinterest in delivering good stories, it’s quite possible that the saga behind the scenes of the unreasonably expensive movie version of THE LONE RANGER could be more interesting than what we end up with on the screen.

Now that the project is back in the saddle with Johnny Depp, masked man Armie Hammer and director Gore Verbinski, producer Jerry Bruckheimer is chatting to THR about some of the sacrifices made in order to get the studio to pull the trigger.

“We cut a sequence involving a coyote attack — supernatural coyotes — and a small animated segment. The train [scenes] are intact. We trimmed it a little bit. Gore made some sacrifices creatively, but nothing that would hurt the film. We had to work it out. The studio set a number, and it was always our responsibility to get to the number.”

That magic number is still a seemingly outrageous $215 million, but does that mean the Old West adventure is completely ditching that whole weird werewolf angle? And… an animated segment? Regardless, lots of choo-choo.

And how does Brucks feel about the shift from December 2012 to a release on May 31, 2013? “It’s a better date. Before, we were up against THE HOBBIT and WORLD WAR Z. Now we’re a week after [FAST SIX] and a couple weeks before SUPERMAN. The competition is not as bad. There are a lot of movies jammed in at Christmas. In the summer, you have a longer run. You’re cut off after the first of the year on a Christmas release.“

As for a fifth PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, Bruckheimer says it’s still in the works. “We will lay out a story. We have a script, but we decided we could do better.” Too bad he didn’t feel the same way last time…