Hi Ho Silver, We're Done! Johnny Depp's 'The Lone Ranger' Shut Down

As we reported in May, Johnny Depp has long been cast as Tonto in the Jerry Bruckheimer reboot of "The Lone Ranger," playing a much smarter and more PC version of the completely racist sidekick of the masked, crime-fighting white equestrian Lone Ranger, played by "Social Network" alum Armie Hammer.

Production had apparently already begun on the film, but according to Deadline Hollywood, Disney has pulled the plug.

Yesterday the publication reported that "in a stunning development, Disney has shut down production on The Lone Ranger, the Gore Verbinski-directed period Western that was to star Johnny Depp as Tonto and Armie Hammer as the title character."

As the L.A. Times points out, the root of the problem may be with the corporation's tenuous relationship with the film's director.

Gore Verbinski pulled out of directing "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" because of concerns about budget-slashing measures by Disney. The company's Chief Executive Bob Iger, in fact, recently gave investors some insight into what may become a trend in their film financing efforts during an earnings call this week.

"It's our intention to take a very careful look at what films cost," Iger told analysts.

"And if we can't get them to a level that we're comfortable with, we think that we're better off actually reducing the size of our slate than making films that are bigger and increasingly more risky."

This would not be the first highly ambitious film project Depp has been involved in that has gone bust due to overreach in scale.

The film "Lost in La Mancha" details the actor's struggles along with director Terry Gilliam to get "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" made. That film was also killed by serious budgetary woes (not to mention a flash flood, NATO bombing and an on-set injury of one of the film's stars, resulting in a $15 million insurance claim.).

There is apparently still a chance the film will get made if the studio and production execs can come to terms with a wide budget disparity ($250 to Disney's goal of $200 million).

Of course, this is the second major story we've reported on this week where tightening costs have threatened to derail high-profile projects. Critically acclaimed, award-winning shows "Breaking Bad" and "The Walking Dead" are currently in peril over at AMC due to similar concerns.

While the U.S. economy is not yet officially in a double-dip recession, is Hollywood headed that way?