It’s been a difficult and trepidacious journey for Disney to bring the big-screen adaptation of Lone Ranger to the big screen, beginning with rejecting the project outright due to its proposed $250-million budget.
After eventually moving ahead with a “leaner” $215 million pricetag, it was reported in June that the production was heading over budget, was behind schedule and already in re-writes. Now, after all that, the unthinkable has occurred on the set of the Johnny Depp epic: a crew member has tragically drowned.
Broken initially by TMZ and then confirmed by Disney thereafter, reports say that an as-of-yet-unidentified crew member of Lone Ranger passed from cardiac arrest while working on a water tank on the L.A. set. Said to be a diver, the man was unable to be resuscitated after be air-lifted to hospital.
Disney had this to say on the incident:
“We regretfully confirm that a Lone Ranger crew member has passed away after being taken to a local hospital. Our hearts and thoughts are with his family, friends, and colleagues at this time, and our full support is behind the investigation into the circumstances of this terrible event.”
Such an occurrence is horrific in any context, and our hearts go out to friends and family as well. At this stage, Lone Ranger nearly seems cursed; eerily similar to The Man Who Killed Don Quixote from director Terry Gilliam which due to floods, the serious injury of the lead and budgetary concerns, never came to fruition.
Unlike that film, however, Lone Ranger will see the light of day on July 2, 2013 and we’ll finally see if all the chaos and tragedy was in any way worth it.
