Johnny Depp’s “The Lone Ranger” to close Italy’s Taormina Film Fest

PanARMENIAN.Net - Italy’s Taormina Film Festival unveiled its lineup Tuesday, June 11 featuring a mix of international blockbusters, smaller dramas and comedies in its famous Teatro Antico venue, with a list of Hollywood A-Listers on tap as the 59-year-old festival continues its return to good health after a near-death experience last year, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Organizers announced Tuesday that Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger, which stars Armie Hammer as the masked title character and Johnny Depp as his sidekick Tonto, would close the festival June 22.

Already announced as the festival’s opener was Man of Steel, which will screen in Taormina as part of its European launch, with director Zack Snyder along with Russell Crowe and Michael Shannon, who play Superman’s biological father and sworn enemy, respectively, on hand for the much-hyped event.

Both films fit into Taormina's oft-revisted role as a launching pad for high-profile international launches, including Transformers in 2007, Toy Story 3 in 2010, followed by Kung Fu Panda 2 two years ago, and Disney/Pixar's Brave last year.

Between the two comics-inspired big-budget films will be a grab bag of offerings, including Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight, which follows Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004) in a series of romantic dramas starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as a couple whose first encounter was on a train while exploring Europe; Danny Boyle’s Trance, a mystery drama about an art auctioneer who partners with a hypnotherapist to track down a lost painting; and Cha Cha Cha, a noir thriller, set in the dirty corners of Rome, from Italian director Marco Risi.