Seth Rogen Says 'Green Hornet' is "Going Great"

In case you're interested, Seth Rogen talked to Sci Fi Wire about the crumpled remains of his Green Hornet movie now that Stephen Chow is off the project. I won't rehash everything here, but I wish they'd just quit while they're only significantly behind.

Rogen, on the other hand, is reassuring. "It's going great," he said this weekend. "In my head, we lost Stephen Chow in April, so it's something I've had a lot of time to wrap my head around." Of course, since Chow is the stroke of genius in this equation and Rogen isn't, you can see why all of this would be troubling. But Rogen is moving forward with director Michel Gondry, whose participation Rogen says "opens a whole new bag of worms." Compliment? I think it's meant to be.

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Could a New Kato Casting Call Completely Doom 'The Green Hornet'?

And with that, I'm tagging The Green Hornet as a bomb. Sure, we're still exactly a year away from the movie being released, but this film is turning the phrase "no news is good news" on its head: Anything we hear is bad news.

Whenever it was, nine months ago or something, the Seth Rogen star vehicle picked up steam with the spot-on selection of Stephen Chow to not only play The Green Hornet's trusty bad-ass manservant Kato but also to direct. It's perfect. That didn't last, though. Chow walked away from directing, dropping hints that he might not even be in the film. Enter Michel Gondry. He's a great director, no question, but is he the right guy for this job? Would you hire Francis Ford Copolla to make a movie about a 40-year-old boy in the fifth grade? Someone did; that movie is Jack. The point is, Gondry is at best an odd choice for a mainstream Seth Rogen action comedy. The rumored addition of Cameron Diaz doesn't help, either, although it probably won't hurt in the long run. But now, Spoiler TV (via Slashfilm) has a new casting announcement for Kato. Stephen Chow, apparently, is dunzo. And because he was the only thing I was really looking forward to anyway, so is the movie.

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Seth Rogen Talks 'Green Hornet'

There's a new interview with Seth Rogen over at The Hollywood Reporter that might of particular interest if you're keen on Observe and Report, which arrives in theaters this Friday.

But we're less interested in that than The Great Unknown: The Green Hornet. Rogen has been involved as a co-writer (with Evan Goldberg) and star for some time, and it looked incredibly promising late last year when Stephen Chow was announced as the new Kato as well as the film's director. That's not going to happen, at least the last part. Whether or not he's Kato is still up in the air. But Rogen sounds excited about the opportunity, even if he doesn't sound like he's in love with the source material:

"Me and Evan always wanted to make a superhero movie about a hero and a sidekick. That's the movie we've been trying to write for years, kind of like deconstructing the relationship between a hero and his sidekick. And we just couldn't crack it. And then one day we got a call saying Green Hornet is up for grabs, and we realized that could be the perfect format for us to do our weird hero-sidekick movie. I mean, we liked The Green Hornet, but we were not particularly fond of the character or loyal to it in any real way. But it's worked out well, and I think it has few enough fans that they won't be disappointed because all people really know is that Bruce Lee was the sidekick. That's all they really need to know going in."

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Rogen Admits 'Green Hornet' Still Needs a Kato

Perhaps it's because I strongly believe that Stephen Chow would be the only reason to see The Green Hornet, but all the news that's popped up in the past three months or so has really soured me on the TV superhero update. Chow was going to direct (brilliant) and play Kato, a role originated back in the 1960s by Bruce Lee. Then he wasn't directing and he wasn't so sure about Kato, either.

So until this week, all we knew was that Chow might play Kato, that Michel Gondry was the new pick to direct and that Seth Rogen was still going to star (he also co-wrote the script). I don't have any particular interest in Rogen playing Green Hornet, and I think Gondry, as good as he is, could be the incorrect choice to direct. And at SXSW, Cinema Blend asked Rogen for a status update, and it's condition critical, in my opinion. "We have no 100% official Kato at this point," he admitted. Oh boy.

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Huh? Michel Gondry to Direct 'Green Hornet'

Variety reports today that Columbia Pictures has finally filled the director's chair vacancy on The Green Hornet, hiring the great and extremely esoteric Michel Gondry to guide the big budget TV adaptation.

If you'll recall, the movie was set to go with director Stephen Chow, who was and might still be playing Kato opposite Seth Rogen's crime fighting hero. But Chow decided he didn't want to make the film the way the studio did and here we are. Personally, I think this could be one influence too many for the poor Green Hornet. I mean, updating it is fine. Updating it with Seth Rogen's specific slacker comedy vibe is fine. Combining that with Stephen Chow's creative and hilarious action visuals was a good choice. But now it's an old TV show re-written by Rogen, co-starring the former director, and directed by one of the more peculiar filmmakers to ever take a meeting on a Hollywood lot.

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