Johnny Depp’s The Lone Ranger could still ride, just on smaller horses

We recently learned that Disney put the brakes on its big-screen, big-budget version of THE LONE RANGER, largely due to the exorbitant paychecks of the talent involved, and the expensive and bizarre decision to have the Old West heroes battling werewolves.

But it’s possible that the project isn’t riding into the sunset just yet. THR says various efforts are taking place to trim the budget from a ludicrous $250 million, but that director Gore Verbinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer would need to relinquish slices of their sizable pies.

The filmmakers would also be required to significantly hack away at the script, but hey, we’ve heard that Disney doesn’t give a shit about a decent story anyway. It’s also conceivable that the project could scrap the recent script drafts and ditch Verbinski but keep Depp (who’s the real draw anyway, apologies to Armie Hammer), since he’s been a driving force behind the update since it was announced back in 2008.

Regardless of how it shakes out, the release date is highly questionable — the movie was initially scheduled for December 2012, where it would have to face THE HOBBIT, WORLD WAR Z and DJANGO UNCHAINED.