Last week everyone was talking about the endless rewrites and extensive reshoots scheduled for World War Z, the big budget zombie movie that is quickly turning into a disaster for Paramount. Now just a few days later it has come out that Disney’s The Lone Ranger is also headed into similar territory… again. The Jerry Bruckheimer production was shut down and almost cancelled last summer after the estimated budget had climbed to the $250 million range prior to shooting. They were able to salvage the project by trimming salaries and excising some special effects sequences to get it close to $215 million, but now this week it is being reported that the budget has risen back up to $250 million anyway and rewrites are underway. Will The Lone Ranger end up becoming another incoherent mess like The Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End or can they still save this Johnny Depp blockbuster?

The story comes courtesy of THR, who also state that the movie is “running days or possibly weeks behind its 120-day shooting schedule.” Weather problems in New Mexico have caused delays and damaged sets… which sounds a lot like a certain other ill-fated movie that Johnny Depp starred in (see: Lost in La Mancha). The biggest problem, however, seems to be the use of period locomotives in a lot of scenes, which have been constructed from scratch and cost a lot of money.

This has all led to director Gore Verbinski being asked to cut scenes on the fly, which usually tends to destroy a film’s plot. Under normal circumstances Disney would probably just let Verbinski do his thing and trust in his previous successes with The Pirates of the Caribbean films, but after John Carter they are a lot more concerned about bleeding money. What do you think, do you have faith that Gore Verbinski will still deliver a solid blockbuster? Why is it so hard for these massive productions to stay on budget?