Disney’s 2013 reboot of the Lone Ranger franchise resulted in one of the worst box office bombs in Hollywood history, as its budget had ballooned to a reported $250 million and it grossed just $260 million worldwide. There’s been a longstanding rumor for a few years that, at one stage in its development, the Lone Ranger movie featured a werewolf prowling around the Old West. Director Gore Verbinski has finally confirmed that this rumor is, in fact, true.

Verbinski departed from the Lone Ranger reboot in its earliest stages of development in order to make the animated movie Rango, also starring Johnny Depp. The Lone Ranger languished in development hell for so long that Verbinski was able to complete Rango and return to the director’s chair before the cameras started rolling. According to the director, the werewolf draft came about while he was off making Rango: “Somewhere in the interim, without me involved, there was a werewolf. That’s where the werewolf thing came from, but I never read that draft.”

RELATED: A $200 Million R-Rated Bioshock Movie Was Rejected By Universal

After spending four years making Rango, the Lone Ranger movie still didn’t have a director, so producer Jerry Bruckheimer asked Verbinski via Depp if he’d be interested in returning to the project and Verbinski said, “Well, I’d like to do the version I was originally thinking about.” During its time in development hell, The Lone Ranger had veered into the supernatural territory – hence the werewolf – but Verbinski was more interested in telling a story about “the inevitability of the future,” and the onslaught of progress in the West with railroads and international trade. He wanted to evoke the anti-westerns of the ‘60s and ‘70s that broke down the myths about cowboys and explored when they became obsolete with the advancement of technology.

Lone Ranger and Tonto in the 2013 Disney reboot

Verbinski pitched this idea to screenwriter Justin Haythe and the two got to work on a new script draft, the one that ended up being produced and finally released into theaters in 2013. Although Verbinski, Bruckheimer, and Depp had previously found huge success reviving the swashbuckling genre with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, they failed to do the same thing for the western in The Lone Ranger.

According to Disney’s Alan Bergman, the studio never managed to make back its Lone Ranger money on merchandising or other monetization methods. The movie was originally planned to launch a lucrative new franchise for the Mouse House, but the sequel was called off when the first one failed to turn a profit.

Now that Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp are both embroiled in scandals, a sequel seems even less likely. Despite The Lone Ranger's box office failure, it did earn two Oscar nominations for Best Visual Effects and Best Makeup and Hairstyling.

The Lone Ranger is now available on Disney Plus.

MORE: Can Pirates of the Caribbean Survive Without Jack Sparrow?

Source: Collider