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'Rango' Director Gore Verbinski Reveals The Top Ten Inspirations Of His Oscar-Contending Animated Feature Film

By Drew Taylor
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February 13, 2012 11:59 AM
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0 Comments

News

If everything goes the way it should in a couple of weeks, Gore Verbinski's surreal western "Rango" will walk away with the Best Animated Feature Oscar. And it will definitely deserve it, as the film is unique, wondrous, gorgeous and deeply involving epic about a chameleon (Johnny Depp) with an existential identity crisis. We caught up with Verbinski last week (who was calling from the New Mexico set of his next western, Disney's giant-sized "The Lone Ranger") to talk about the film and his top ten inspirations for "Rango." Some of them are quite surprising, indeed.

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Acclaimed Music Video Director Chris Milk To Helm 'Bitterroot' Produced By Gore Verbinski

By Kevin Jagernauth
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October 28, 2011 1:17 AM
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Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures To FinanceIt seems acclaimed music video director Chris Milk has found a new best bud in everyone's favorite young, billionaire movie producer/financier Megan Ellison. Earlier in the month it was announced the pair were teaming on an ambitious film adaptation of the album Rome, a record that teamed Gnarls Barkley/Beck producer Danger Mouse and Italian composer Daniele Luppi on an album of spaghetti Western homages. But it looks like he's going to get something a bit less high concept for his first crack at a feature film.

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Lower Budget Turned In For 'The Lone Ranger'; Johnny Depp Sticking By Gore Verbinski

By Kevin Jagernauth
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September 1, 2011 2:41 AM
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3 Comments

Ah, the saga of "The Lone Ranger" continues to ride on and in case you've been away here's the short version. Seeing "Cowboys & Aliens" tank, contrasted with the extraordinary $250-75 million budget that was in play for "The Lone Ranger," Disney panicked and yanked the cord on the film, sending the filmmakers scrambling to try and get the budget down to somewhere between $200-220 million while still retaining the eye-popping sequences people are going to be paying for. The result? Well, it's not back up and running but producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski are trying their damndest.

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Will 'The Lone Ranger' Ride On Without Gore Verbinski?

By Gabe Toro
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August 22, 2011 1:05 AM
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4 Comments

Reporting from D23, Deadline noted a curious omission in comments by Disney exec Rich (not Rick) Ross regarding the currently-stalled "The Lone Ranger." “I’m hoping to do it," he says, "I’m certainly hoping. I think it’s a compelling story and no one wants to work with Jerry [Bruckheimer] and Johnny [Depp] more than me so we’ll see how it works.” Curious is the unmentioned Gore Verbinski, who has been in the director's chair for this project coming on a couple of years now.

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So How Come 'The Lone Ranger' Was Going To Cost $250 Million? 5 Reasons Disney Got Cold Feet

By Oliver Lyttelton
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August 15, 2011 12:55 PM
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2 Comments

Assuming "The Lone Ranger" ever gets made, spoilers ahead

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Universal Drops Gore Verbinski's 'Clue' But Project Still Moving Ahead With New Writers

By Kevin Jagernauth
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August 3, 2011 5:50 AM
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3 Comments

You not remember, but near the end of 2009 we made up a list of the Dumbest Movie Projects announced that year and among the them were "Battleship," "Candyland," "Monopoly" and "Clue." Yes, Hasbro is ready to turn their boardgames into viable franchises and while movement has been probably a bit slower than they might want -- "Battleship" won't come out until next year -- they are taking matters into their own hands whether or not they have studio participation.

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Tom Wilkinson In Talks To Join Johnny Depp & Armie Hammer In 'The Lone Ranger'

By Oliver Lyttelton
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June 23, 2011 12:58 PM
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1 Comment

There's nothing that can make a director look good in retrospect as someone else coming into the franchise that they birthed and messing it up even more than it already was, and that's what happened to Gore Verbinski in the last month or so. The second and third entries in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series might have been bloated and CGI-heavy (although not without their charms, we'd argue), but they were "Raiders of the Lost Ark" compared to Rob Marshall's recent fourth installment, and if nothing else it's reminded us that Verbinski is a more talented director than many of his tentpole competition.

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Armie Hammer Confirmed To Star Opposite Johnny Depp In 'The Lone Ranger'

By Oliver Lyttelton
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May 17, 2011 11:11 AM
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5 Comments

Perhaps it says something about the dearth of real leading men in Hollywood -- films from "Captain America" to "Snow White and the Huntsman" and "Akira" have had real problems landing actors -- but Armie Hammer has had one of the fastest accelerations from unknown to movie star that we can remember. A mere eight months ago, if you knew his name, and few did, it was as a nearly man, the actor cast as Batman in George Miller's aborted "Justice League" movie. But after stealing the show as the Winklevi in "The Social Network," the actor's landed bigger and bigger roles.

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Weekend Box Office: 'Rango' Wrangles The Year's Highest Debut So Far with $38 Million

By Gabe Toro
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March 6, 2011 6:49 AM
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7 Comments

CG-toons. You can’t go wrong. Even if you’re alienating viewers. While “Rango” is the first non-3D animated film of the last year or so, most were predicting a much bigger opening around $50 million or so. Still, a not-bad $38 million showing for the film this weekend, though Cinemascore audiences only rated the film a C+. Most of those negative notices are probably due to the unconventional visual style, though critics have been making comparisons to Jim Jarmusch and allusions to Hunter S. Thompson. Yeah, those references were missing from “Gnomeo and Juliet.” Still, this seems like a one-and-done affair for people not exactly associated with animated work, especially considering a very hefty price tag that won’t be recouped without a muscular second weekend hold.

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Review: 'Rango' Is A Sweetly Surreal Animated Western

By Drew Taylor
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March 2, 2011 4:59 AM
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2 Comments

It's strange to think that Gore Verbinski, an accomplished visual stylist who began in commercials (he was responsible for those "Bud-weis-er" talking bullfrog ads), would want to follow up the daunting and problem-plagued back-to-back shoots of the two latter 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movies with an animated film. Not only are animated films notoriously time-consuming and hard to crack, but this would be his first fully animated film and the debut feature film from Industrial Light & Magic, George Lucas' wizardly visual effects house. And this was supposed to be his "small" movie.

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