Helena Bonham Carter and more on for The Lone Ranger

Helena Bonham Carter, Dwight Yoakam and Barry Pepper are in talks to join the cast of Disney’s The Lone Ranger .

For some time, Johnny Depp was the sole actor attached to the project (he's playing Tonto), but it's now gathering pace and scoring quality thesps galore.

Helena Bonham Carter, no stranger to acting alongside Depp, is set to play a brothel madam, which will no doubt give her the chance to create another colourful character to add to her superb back catalogue.

Dwight Yoakam, a country music star with an impressive array of acting credits, will take on the role of Butch Cavendish, the ruthless leader of a gang that set upon the Texas Ranger and leave him for dead.

And Barry Pepper, star of TV’s The Kennedys and no stranger to westerns ( True Grit , The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada ), will apparently play a military officer.

Already on board with Depp are Armie Hammer as the ranger, and Tom Wilkinson as an evil railroad tycoon.

Jerry Bruckheimer is producing, and with Verbinski at the helm, he’ll no doubt be hoping for another Pirates Of The Caribbean -sized success.

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.