a href="/myfiles/Images/2013/07/03/lr_big.jpg" title=" This publicity image released by Disney shows Johnny Depp as Tonto (left) and Armie Hammer as The Lone Ranger, in a scene from "The Lone Ranger." — AP " This publicity image released by Disney shows Johnny Depp as Tonto (left) and Armie Hammer as The Lone Ranger, in a scene from "The Lone Ranger." — AP LOS ANGELES — When the western television series “The Lone Ranger” first rode into US homes in the 1949, the masked man was the dashing, charming hero and the Native American Tonto his loyal sidekick. When the movie opens in US theaters on Wednesday, it will be Tonto who takes center stage. Played by Johnny Depp with the same offbeat charm as his Captain Jack Sparrow in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, Tonto is the brains of the operation. In an opening sequence – a breakneck fight scene on a runaway train - Tonto directs an escape from outlaws while a mask-less Lone Ranger, played by Armie Hammer, is the naive one, unsure at the outset that he was even in danger. “It's a story we've all heard, but we've never heard it from the guy who was there,” the film's director Gore Verbinski, 49, told Reuters. For the new incarnation, Verbinski wanted to update the story by making Tonto more relevant than just a sidekick. Once the idea was hatched to make him the narrator, “it opened a lot of doors” in terms of storytelling, he said. — Reuters
