"Hi-yo Silver! Away!" Those are the immortal words of the classic Western hero that first rode to justice on the radio and eventually on television in the '1940s and early '50s. Now the famous character is about to ride on to the big screen thanks to Rango director Gore Verbinski and his star, actor Johnny Depp. Depp is scheduled to play the Lone Ranger's faithful sidekick Tonto in the film, while Verbinski is set to direct. Justin Haythe (The Clearing) is penning the script and Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest) will produce the film.

Recently we had a chance to catch up with Gore Verbinski, and Johnny Depp while they were out promoting their new film Rango, which opens in theaters on March 4th. We took the opportunity to ask both the director, and the actor about the highly anticipated new project. We began by asking Verbinski if he had cast anyone as the Lone Ranger yet.

"I can't talk about casting other than Johnny Depp is playing Tonto."

We followed up by asking the director what the current status of the project is right now.

"We're working on the screenplay and its similar in terms of trying to design it around Tonto now the way we designed Pirates around Jack or Rango around Rango. I see that film and again it's in an early stage, as Don Quixote from Sancho Panza's point of view. You've all heard the story of the Lone Ranger but now you can hear it from Tonto's perspective."

We finished by asking Verbinski when he thinks the film will begin shooting.

"I don't know? It's looking more and more like next year because Johnny is doing Dark Shadows but that movie is going to take a tremendous amount of prep."

We also had an opportunity to speak with Johnny Depp who confirmed that he would begin working on Lone Ranger once he completes work on Tim Burton's Dark Shadows. We finished by asking the actor if he was excited to be playing Tonto in the upcoming film.

"Oh, yeah absolutely."