Mike Fleming  EXCLUSIVE: Even though Disney scrapped a fall
start date for The Lone Ranger, and then green lit the film for
a mid-February start date once director Gore Verbinski and
producer Jerry Bruckheimer brought a $250 million + budget down
to around $215 million, the cast around Johnny Depp and Armie
Hammer remained pretty much intact. But now the picture has lost
one of its major bad guys. Dwight Yoakam has dropped out of the
picture, and insiders attribute it to a scheduling conflict.