Disney delighted the Comic Con attendees who packed Hall H for their panel discussion of upcoming attractions on Thursday by ending their presentation with a brief but action-packed glimpse of footage from Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger. Although viewers didn’t get to see much in the way of character development in the footage shown, Entertainment Weekly‘s Anthony Breznican feels safe in reporting that “Verbinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer are focusing on a more serious Lone Ranger instead of the jokey version some worried was coming down the tracks. [. . .] Those looking for a darker take on The Lone Ranger will be pleased by the intense tone and focus on action over humor.”

Despite the ballyhoo over the movie’s budget, CinemaBlend’s Katie Rich reports that Disney is getting plenty of visual bang for its buck(s). “[D]irector Gore Verbinski has been famously battling for a bigger budget — which really seems to be paying off, it’s fair to say, from what we saw in that trailer. The movie version of The Lone Ranger is obviously going to be a great deal bigger than the old TV show, and the sets — from a saloon hall to a train station to the incredible expanse of Monument Valley — look worth the expense. If the movie is about the real, rough-and-tumble action of men jumping on trains and chasing each other on horseback, we could be in for an enormous but somewhat old-school kind of action Western.”

There’s no word yet about when the Lone Ranger footage might be available online, but we’ll keep a sharp eye.

The Zone thanks FANtasticJD, ~SB, Maritza1,and Sleepy for sharing news. You can read more about The Lone Ranger, including the Comic Con presentation, on the Zone’s News & Views forum. The Entertainment Weekly article is available HERE and the CinemaBlend article is available HERE.