THE LONE RANGER is “a buddy movie,” says director Gore Verbinski
In a recent interview with Eric Eisenberg of CinemaBlend, director Gore Verbinski described his latest project, the epic Western The Lone Ranger, as “a mix of Don Quixote and Midnight Run.” Verbinski wanted to approach Johnny Depp’s Tonto as “Sancho Panza telling the story of Don Quixote,” so the film would come to the audience through Tonto’s perspective. And it was important that the relationship between the Ranger and Tonto be one of equals, not a hero and a sidekick.
“It needs to be a two-hander,” Verbinski explained. “I need the Lone Ranger that’s sort of Jimmy Stewart from [John Ford’s The Man Who Shot] Liberty Valance, who’s going to believe in right and wrong and come in on the train and kind of crash into this sort of [Sam] Peckinpah world where justice can be purchased now.” The Lone Ranger character has to go through a process of education to come to terms with the world as it is. “[W]e take this cop and this Native American and shackle them together and then put them on this quest where their worlds are colliding and they’re the only two people who know the truth and nobody else believes them. [. . .] So you get into a buddy movie. This is [. . .] two guys that sort of don’t get along, but it’s Midnight Run, and that’s kind of the engine underneath this thing and then you deal with the bigger issues, the bigger subtext, of the train and progress and this sort post-modern western.”
The full CinemaBlend interview with Gore Verbinski is available HERE. You can read more about The Lone Ranger on the Zone’s News & Views forum and the Porch General Discussion forum.