Xixax Film Forum

ACCLAIMED FILMMAKER KEVIN SMITH STUNG BY THE GREEN HORNET


Miramax Films Taps Smith to Write and Direct Action-Adventure Feature

NEW YORK, NEW YORK (February XX, 2004) -- Gearing up for one of its most ambitious film franchises to date, Miramax Films co-chairman Harvey Weinstein announced today that renowned filmmaker and comic book author, collector and self described "comic fan-boy" Kevin Smith will write and direct the film version of the classic action-adventure persona, The Green Hornet. The film represents Miramax's expansion of its development and production slate to include motion pictures that can compete in the "tent pole" marketplace. George Trendle, the son of Green Hornet creator George Trendle, will executive produce the film along with Harold Berkowitz.

Smith is keeping the plot a closely guarded secret, and will only go as far to say that it would remain very true to Trendle's characters with a few new twists.

"Kevin's tremendous work on our upcoming Jersey Girl, has demonstrated his continued growth as a filmmaker and we have no doubt that he will tackle this franchise for us in a compelling and entertaining way. In addition to being a great writer and director, Kevin knows more about comic characters, books and the creative process than anyone else I have ever met," said Weinstein. "The character of The Green Hornet offers a myriad of possible film ideas and numerous merchandise and branded integration opportunities with our corporate partners, giving us a platform for a very viable and long standing franchise."

"Long-time comics geek gets to make comic book movie? This is a dream come true. I'm still reeling! You don't know how in love with Harvey Weinstein I am right now. I couldn't have asked for a better vote of confidence in me as a filmmaker than being afforded the opportunity with 'Hornet' to push beyond the boundaries of what I've done in film thus far, said Smith. Adding "And making this movie with Miramax means that not only will we deliver an exciting, chop-socky-filled action flick, but it's gonna have a compelling story, believable characters, and great dialogue to boot! Let's roll, Kato!"

Beginning with his seminal film Clerks, Smith has woven comic book references and iconology into the dialogue and characters in many of his films. In 1997's Chasing Amy, Smith's two main characters, who are comic-book writers/artists, create a comic duo known as Bluntman and Chronic; a duo which also appears in Smith's 2001 film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. In Mallrats, Smith also features comic-book legend Stan Lee in a supporting role.

Smith is well known for writing award-winning, best-selling runs of "Daredevil" for Marvel Comics and "Green Arrow" for DC Comics, as well as comics based on his films Clerks and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Smith is also credited with rekindling the mainstream public's interest in comics through his 1998 Daredevil comic book story arc, entitled Guardian Devil.

Serving as Hollywood's comic-book connoisseur, Smith is no stranger to The Green Hornet. In 1993 Smith sold his comic book collection to help finance the $27,000 budget of his 1994 debut film, "Clerks;" a collection which included several 'Green Hornet' titles.

Smith is the proud owner of his own comic book store, Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash, which opened in 1997 in Red Bank, NJ and is scheduled to open a west coast branch in Westwood this May.

Jon Gordon, executive vice president of production, and Hannah Minghella, creative executive, will oversee the project on behalf of Miramax.

Charles Layton, executive vice president, office of the co-chairman, and Steve Hutensky, executive vice president of business affairs, negotiated on behalf of Miramax. Attorney John Sloss and the Endeavor Agency represented Smith.

Miramax and Smith's most recent collaboration Jersey Girl, starring Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler, will open in theaters nationwide on March 26, 2004.

Kevin Smith on The Green Hornet

Superhero Hype! caught up with "Clerks II" director Kevin Smith and we asked him about the status of the possible Green Hornet adaptation.

Asked whether he was still thinking about directing, Smith said, "No, it really comes down to I'm really not talented enough to pull off a movie like that. It was between that and 'Clerks II' and I drove toward 'Clerks II' in such a big, bad way and almost had to fight Harvey Weinstein to do 'Clerks II' as opposed to a 'Green Hornet' movie, cuz he's like, 'it's time for you to grow and stretch as a filmmaker' and I'm like, 'doesn't anybody get it after twelve years? I'm not that talented. This is what I do [well].' This is why I got into film, to tell stories like that. I love watching comic book movies. I'd love to watch a 'Green Hornet' movie, but would not want to be the guy at the helm of that movie. Number one, I make one of those movies and I lose the right to make fun of other people for making those movies. I learned that the hard way making 'Jersey Girl.' I can't make fun of 'Raising Helen' anymore. If I raise one finger to 'Raising Helen,' people are like, 'dude—you made Jersey Girl.' But number two, that's not the story I like to tell. I like to tell stories about people sitting around and talking to each other and what not. And that's really what I'm kind of good at and most people would argue that I'm not even that good at that to begin with. So the notion of doing 'Green Hornet' is just not appealing to me. In comic book form—wonderful. I love to write comic books. You don't have to think about shooting that sh*t, plus you can get into the inner life of a character, you can deal with years of continuity, you can drop reference to a story that happened fifteen years ago. Doing that in the mainstream on a feature basis is just not the same.

Miramax Films announced on February 18, 2004 that Smith would write and direct The Green Hornet, but Smith later changed his mind.

Back then, he said, "Long-time comics geek gets to make comic book movie? This is a dream come true. I'm still reeling! You don't know how in love with Harvey Weinstein I am right now. I couldn't have asked for a better vote of confidence in me as a filmmaker than being afforded the opportunity with 'Hornet' to push beyond the boundaries of what I've done in film thus far. And making this movie with Miramax means that not only will we deliver an exciting, chop-socky-filled action flick, but it's gonna have a compelling story, believable characters, and great dialogue to boot! Let's roll, Kato!"

Seth Rogen tabbed for Green Hornet
Source: Los Angeles Times

Fresh on the heels of his leading-man debut as accidental baby daddy Ben in the hit comedy "Knocked Up," Seth Rogen has entered a deal to write and likely star in "The Green Hornet" for Columbia Pictures.

The studio announced in March that it had optioned the rights to the superhero property that follows the adventures of Brit Reid. A wealthy publisher of The Daily Sentinel by day, Reid roams as a masked crime fighter by night, dedicated to protecting the lives and rights of the city's citizens. Reid is accompanied by Kato, a chauffeur-bodyguard-personal assistant during business hours who transforms into a masked sidekick with a knack for martial arts when the sun goes down. The two cruise around town in a dark sedan known as the Black Beauty.

Neal H. Moritz is developing the project with Rogen via the producer's Original Film company. Moritz has been chasing the rights for years having been a big fan of the '60s television series. He declined to comment on Rogen's involvement.

Rogen's deal was confirmed to the Los Angeles Times by a number of sources both inside and outside the studio, who are involved with the film. Sony is said to be eyeing a 2009 release. Sony president of production Matt Tolmach is expected to oversee for Columbia Pictures.

Rogen is just the newest player in a large and varied cast of characters who have tried to bring Green Hornet to the big screen. A Green Hornet film was previously announced at Universal with Ron Underwood directing. Three years ago Miramax entered a deal with Kevin Smith to adapt and direct a Green Hornet film. Actors as wide ranging as George Clooney, Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Wahlberg have been rumored to be in talks to play Reid over the years. And at one point or another Jason Scott Lee and Jet Li have been rumored to play Kato.

The Green Hornet originally began life as a radio show in the 1930s, a creation of George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, who also created the Lone Ranger. The character has since been the subject of a couple of Universal movies in the 1940s, comic books and, perhaps most memorably, the short-lived ABC television series that starred Van Williams as the Green Hornet and introduced American audiences to Bruce Lee as Kato.

Rogen next appears as the paunchy, beer lover Officer Michaels in the August release "Superbad," based on a script he co-wrote with Evan Goldberg. Next year "The Pineapple Express" and "Drillbit Taylor," based on Rogen's screenplays, are also scheduled for release. The rising star has lined up a number of acting gigs, including voice roles in "The Spiderwicke Chronicles" and "Horton Hears a Who."

Ho. Ly. Shit.

What the fuck.

Quote from: shnorff on July 19, 2007, 05:19:25 PM
Ho. Ly. Shit.

What the fuck.

seth rogen is writing the green hornet and might star as the green hornet.

Quote from: Pubrick on July 19, 2007, 05:22:52 PM

Quote from: shnorff on July 19, 2007, 05:19:25 PM
Ho. Ly. Shit.

What the fuck.

seth rogen is writing the green hornet and might star as the green hornet.

I think the question was more existential.

I wonder if Banky still likes Kevin Smith.

Exclusive! Rogen Wants Stephen Chow for Kato
Source: Los Angeles Times

We broke the news yesterday that "Knocked Up" star Seth Rogen has been tapped by Sony to write and likely star in "Green Hornet." Rogen actually pitched the remake to Sony who liked his comedic take. Execs in Culver City hope Rogen can reinvent the recently dark and moody superhero adaptations, according to sources.

Today we hear that Seth Rogen's first choice to play Kato, Green Hornet's masked and martial arts-enabled sidekick, is none other than "Kung Fu Hustle" director and star Stephen Chow. Now that's a comedic take! Whether or not Chow's dance card is clear is another issue.

Rogen: Hornet Is No Joke
Source: SciFiWire

Seth Rogen, who will co-write and star in the film adaptation of the 1960s TV series The Green Hornet, told reporters that although he is known for comedy, the film will be more of a straight-up action movie.

"We're not doing like a goofy reimagining of The Green Hornet or anything," Rogen said in a press conference while promoting his current film, Superbad, at Comic-Con International in San Diego over the weekend. "He's not getting bitten by a radioactive hornet or anything like that."

Rogen is developing the film with his writing partner Evan Goldberg, who co-wrote Superbad and the upcoming action film Pineapple Express with him. He said that as fans of the original TV series, they don't want to deviate too far from the source material.

"It's something that I've always been a fan of and Evan's really into," he said. "We're trying to keep it as true to the 1966 TV series as possible. We want it to be an adventure-action movie, somewhere in the world of Lethal Weapon and Indiana Jones, I guess you would say. I mean, totally, that's kind of what we're striving for. We just want it to be fun and kick-ass."

Rogen said that the experience of making Pineapple Express was what convinced him and Goldberg that they could do justice to The Green Hornet.

"The people who've seen it really think the action is kick-ass, which is kind of one of the reasons we thought we could even maybe make the movie like The Green Hornet, because we saw that it actually works," he said. "And tonally you can kind of keep it real and have good action and good emotions and humor, and it all can kind of work together in this."

Seth Rogen Buffs Up (Sort Of) To Fit Into The Green Hornet's Trench Coat
'You should believe that I can do some physical activity,' the 'Knocked Up' star jokes of his physical regimen for superhero role.
Source: MTV

Heavyweight actors like George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Jake Gyllenhaal all flirted with the project, so when it was the literally heavyweight star of "Knocked Up" who was ultimately tapped to bring the iconic Green Hornet to the big screen, it was as if millions of fanboys cried out in terror: "Seth Rogen as Britt Reid? Say what?"

"[The fan reaction] was a little surprising. I love the idea! I think it's going to be a unique and interesting movie," the jocular always-self-deprecating Rogen announced, before adding with a laugh, "but nerds love complaining. You go on [the Web site for] Ain't It Cool News, and everybody complains about everything. They could find out Jesus Christ was making a movie with Frank Miller, and they'd say, 'That's a terrible combination!' "

In all fairness, Frank Miller announcing "Jerusalem: The Real Sin City" might be only slightly more bizarre than Rogen as a costumed super. But, then, his "Green Hornet" will be like no superhero movie we've ever seen before, the 25-year-old star insisted.

"Just a few weeks ago, [co-writer Evan Goldberg and I] laid out our outline for the movie to the studio, and before the phone call, Evan and I were like, 'This is not like any superhero movie — they might just hate that,' " Rogen recalled. " 'It's not using any of the normal superhero movie formats. It's not an origin story. It's more like a regular action movie.' [But] they really liked it and told us to go for it."

So hold onto your green fedoras, Hornet fans! The comedian told MTV News that he's getting buff for his starring role as the flick's titular character. Well, sort of.

"You should believe that I can do some physical activity," Rogen laughed. "You have to believe I can do something."

Getting slim is just one of the ways Rogen is staying true to the action aspects of the character, he asserted. And fans worried about just how well the ferocious talent behind "Superbad" and "Knocked Up" writes action? They should hold off judgment until his next movie hits theaters, Rogen said.

"I think when people see 'Pineapple Express' it will make more sense to them," Rogen teased of his next project, a high-octane action/comedy co-starring James Franco.

But while Rogen and Goldberg are committed to action, the writing duo actually have two outlines for the movie, the actor confessed, similar in some respects but varying greatly in tone.

"There's a more comedic version and a less comedic version, and we don't know what will feel right until we're actually writing it," he revealed to MTV News. "We were about to start writing the script, and then the [writers'] strike hit.

"It's really hard to wrap our head around what the movie will be until we've written the script," he added.

But while Rogen admitted to vacillating between the two versions, he's anything but ambivalent on another tough decision, unabashedly banging the drum for one of two actors to play Kato, the Hornet's Asian manservant and partner in crime.

"I think what's most important about the Kato part is it's someone that you believe can kick the sh-- out of a lot of people," Rogen said of the role made famous by Bruce Lee in the late-'60s television version. "['Kung Fu Hustle' star] Steven Chow is incredible. That was someone we had talked about. I'm a big Tony Jaa fan also."

On the matter of a director, however, Rogen was less committal. "We're always thinking of people who we wouldn't think of. We want guys who will bring something new to the table," he said. "There are two schools of thought: You can get the guy who's a great action-movie director, who's done a million action movies. Or you get the guy who's never done it but has fresh ideas.

"[In the end] we want someone who will make it better than we could have made it," he concluded.

Stephen Chow as Kato? please god let this happen

Kevin Smith 'Green' with Envy over Seth Rogen's Hornet
Source: MTV

That Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen, two funnymen known for their raunchy yet touching blend of humor, have teamed up for "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" is so obviously a good match as to be of little surprise to even their most peripheral fans.

And if two guys who traffic in similar comedic tones joining up isn't a shock, then the fact that they both adapted a screenplay from the same source material shouldn't be either. Except, of course, that the source material in question is a superhero movie.

"It is kind of ironic that he wound up doing 'Green Hornet,'" Smith said of Rogen's movie version of the vigilante crimefighter, since years before Rogen made headlines for tackling the project, Smith himself was attached. And now he's Green with envy over Rogen's opportunity to do what he couldn't.

"I wish I could have made his version," Smith said. "The parameters that we had in our version of 'Green Hornet' - he's not suffering from the same parameters At the time they were like 'We want to make a big straight-forward action movie" - the wrong approach for the character, Smith insisted.

"You can't really compete with Spiderman and Batman and stuff like that with Green Hornet," the director contended. "So it's best to take a different approach to it all-together."

Which, according to Smith, is what Rogen is finally getting a real chance to do.

"He's Seth Rogan, the man of the moment. He can do anything he wants with that project," Smith said. "It's not a comedy what he's doing, but he gets to do his with a better sense of humor than we would have been allowed to. He's in a great free place to do something fresh with that material."

is rogen that talented to warrant a lifetime of deals or is he just really lucky?  it feels like he's been working really hard, but he's kinda like the dream of every college grad who's ever left for Hollywood, with their own coming-of-age comedies, stoner comedies, or dudes sitting around comedies.  for some reason all of it came together for rogen in a big way, and now big studio people trust him with a stoner action comedy (directed by david gordon green!) and this superhero movie!  he's earnest and funny, but is there none like him?  why can't other great comedians in hollywood get a pass from the studio?  patton oswalt, where is your superbad?

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Green Hornet Title Revealed
Official site for Seth Rogen flick online.

Okay, so it's not much, but it's something. Columbia Pictures has launched their official site for The Green Hornet, complete with a snazzy title treatment that touts star Seth Rogen's involvement and the planned June 25, 2010 release date.

The Knocked Up funnyman will star and write the script for the action-packed adaptation based on The Green Hornet radio program, TV show and comic adventures that have remained popular since the character's creation in the 1930s.

The story centers on newspaper publisher Britt Reid who fights crime as the masked adventurer alongside his ass-whoopin' sidekick Kato (famously played on the '60s TV series by Bruce Lee).

Rogen recently told IGN that the movie is expected to have a PG-13 rating.  "That's an action movie, you can do anything violence-wise," he said. And Rogen says that he'd love to have Kung Fu Hustle actor Stephen Chow as Kato.

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thegreenhornet/

I vote for Seth Rogen to take over any project Kevin Smith is attached to write.

Chow to Direct and Star in Green Hornet!
Source: ComingSoon

Stephen Chow, one of Asia's most popular box-office draws as the award-winning star and director of such films as Kung Fu Hustle, CJ7, and Shaolin Soccer, will direct Seth Rogen and star opposite him as Kato in Columbia Pictures' The Green Hornet, set for release June 25, 2010, it was announced today by Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach, presidents of Columbia Pictures. The screenplay is by Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg, who will also executive produce. Neal H. Moritz is the producer through his Original Film production company.

In tapping Chow to helm The Green Hornet, Sony Pictures Entertainment continues a long association with the star and director. Under its local language initiative, Sony co-produced and released Chow's Kung Fu Hustle, which went on to gross over $100 million worldwide and received a Golden Globe® nomination as well as six Hong Kong Film Awards and five Taiwan Golden Horse Awards. Sony also released CJ7.

Commenting on the announcement, Tolmach said, "When Seth, Evan, and Neal said they wanted Stephen Chow to be part of 'The Green Hornet,' it was a fantasy. Now that it's happening, it's almost too good to be true. Stephen's been a very important part of the Sony family for many years, so it's truly serendipitous for us to be moving forward with him directing the movie and starring as Kato."

Chow added, "I'm excited to be taking on 'The Green Hornet' -- obviously, I've been a huge fan of the show since I was a kid. The idea of stepping into Bruce Lee's shoes as Kato is both humbling and thrilling, and to get the chance to direct the project as my American movie debut is simply a dream come true. I'm grateful to my friends at Sony, who have shown so much faith in me for so many years. I'm looking forward to working with Seth, Evan, Neal, and the team at Sony, and I'm eager to get started."

Moritz said, "'The Green Hornet' is a dream project and it's come together in a dream way. Seth will be fantastic in the lead role, and Stephen was the only name on the list for Kato. The material is a perfect match for his sensibilities -- Stephen in the director's chair is the best thing for the film."

Rogen said, "Stephen was always my and Evan's first choice for director and to play Kato. We just hope that he never finds out we're not the Wachowski Brothers."

Ori Marmur will serve as the Executive Producer of the film.

Chow previously told us of his interest in the project. "When I saw the program, I thought it was a great role and thought it was outstanding, because I'm Chinese and it's Bruce Lee, but I'd be happy to play that role," he said.

Later, we asked Seth Rogen about approaching Chow, who answered, "It's a very intense action movie and the relationship between Green Hornet and Kato, a lot of comedy comes from that. At first actually, we weren't even sure going in we could be more of a Jet Li type guy who maybe isn't the funniest guy in the world, but he's physically very impressive, or whether it would be more of a Stephen Chow type guy who can do martial arts, but clearly has a sense of humor. In the version that we've made it seems like a Stephen Chow type guy would be more suitable for the role. Again, until they officially greenlight it, it's hard to make any of those decisions."

Quote from: squints on December 01, 2007, 09:19:29 PM
Stephen Chow as Kato? please god let this happen

Thanks god.

Seth Rogen's 'Green Hornet' Will Tell Hero's Origin Story Because 'No One Knows Anything About The Green Hornet'
Funnyman snags Stephen Chow to direct and co-star in 2010 comic book flick.
 
Speaking with MTV News last November, writer/star Seth Rogen promised he was buffing up for the role of Britt Reid in "The Green Hornet," he was looking very strongly at Stephen Chow for the role of Kato, and the movie wouldn't follow an origin story.

Well, two out of three ain't bad.

Looking more svelte and in-shape than ever, Rogen now insists that his action-hero comedy — which he likened in tone to "True Lies" — will follow a more traditional "beginnings" arc.

Despite the vociferous complaining from fans who initially objected to Rogen's command of the project, the funnyman says an origin story is necessary because, according to him, there aren't really that many fans.

"No one gives a sh--," Rogen insisted. "There was, like, three people [who care about 'Hornet']. It [had to be] somewhat of [an origin story then]. We didn't intend it to be one, but we realized that no one knows anything about the Green Hornet, and it actually became more confusing than anything that we didn't include somewhat of an origin story. We realized through people being very confused with our screenplay that we should probably include somewhat of an origin in it."

As for Chow, who Rogen has been talking up since last year's Comic-Con, it was recently announced that the celebrated filmmaker would both co-star and direct the project.

"See? We did it!" Rogen proclaimed with a laugh. "We weren't talking sh--!"

An actor for more than 25 years, Chow is best known in America for recent hits like "Kung Fu Hustle" and "Shaolin Soccer," films that can only be described as martial arts by way of "Looney Tunes."

With Chow behind the camera, then, it's tempting to think that "Green Hornet" will be played for absurdity rather than realism. Half-right, Rogen said, teasing that the tone will wind up somewhere in between.

"We're figuring out now what exactly the reality level is and exactly how to let [Stephen] have fun, but [at the same time] do something that's accessible to American audiences," Rogen said. "[But] I gotta be honest. We are, like, literally in the process of having those conversations right now. We're at the very early phases."

"The Green Hornet" has a tentative release date of June 25, 2010.

Rogen Promises Hornet Preview

He's playing the title role of the Green Hornet, he hasn't shot one foot of film yet, and he's still working out communications problems with the director, but Seth Rogen told SCI FI Wire that he hopes to have something available to show fans at Comic-Con next summer.

"Comic-Con is my favorite event of the year," Rogen said. "It's more fun to me than the movie premieres, than anything. I love Comic-Con. All of our friends come down for it, and we just have a really good time, and it's always a lot of fun. I would love nothing more than to be able to show something at Comic-Con."

In fact, as he noticeably buffs up and slims down for the role--though he has yet to shoot any footage for the movie--Rogen said he is meeting this week with studio executives and director Stephen Chow to discuss what they could possibly have ready for the international conference in San Diego, which begins next July 23. Rogen discussed becoming the superhero Britt Reid during early interviews this past weekend for the animated DreamWorks film Monsters vs. Aliens, which is coming out in spring. In that film, Rogen voices the part of an amorphous blob named B.O.B. as part of a team of monsters that includes creatures voiced by Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett and others.

"We are already having that conversation this week," said Rogen, who insisted the Green Hornet filming won't start until May. Rogen is co-writing the script with Evan Goldberg, and Chow has not yet relocated from Hong Kong to begin shooting.

"The process has been very collaborative and very good," Rogen said about the director. "He's given us a lot of ideas. His English is, ... well, we keep saying when we all come out of this, we will be great communicators. He's made great strides, I will say. It presents its own challenges at times. We get along really, really well. We are really just starting the process, very little has actually been done. ... We're actually in the very preliminary stages right now."

The Green Hornet isn't scheduled for release by Sony Pictures until 2010. "Give the people what they want," Rogen added about a sneak peek at Comic-Con. "If it's not ready, you can blame Sony."

Chow no longer to direct 'Hornet'
Actor will still play Kato in Columbia film
Source: Variety

There's been another change in the "Hornet" nest: Stephen Chow has dropped out as director of "The Green Hornet" but will still play Kato in Columbia Pictures' latest bid to get the crimefighter to the bigscreen.

The studio and producer Neal Moritz are in the process of setting a new director to keep the picture on track to begin production by spring.

The character began on radio in the 1930s and is best known from the '60s TV version. But a bigscreen translation is having a long gestation, going through many incarnations, including as a proposed George Clooney vehicle.

Chow, who directed and starred in "Kung Fu Hustle" and "Shaolin Soccer," signed in September to direct the film and play the role originated in the TV series by Bruce Lee. He stepped out as director over creative differences.

The film was scripted by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and Rogen is starring as the masked crime fighter. The script will likely be polished, and a director could be in place by year's end.

Well, that sucks. Chow directing was pretty much the only reason I was interested in this flick. Creative differences my ass. They probably just told him, "Our way or the highway" and he chose the highway.

$10 says he's starring in it to ruin it.

Stephen Chow Might Not be Kato Either?
Source:The Associated Press

Late last week, it was announced that Stephen Chow had dropped out as director of Columbia Pictures' The Green Hornet but that he would still play Kato in the comic book adaptation.

Now, however, that is still up in the air as well as Chow tells The Associated Press that he may not have time to star as Kato, the character made famous by Bruce Lee.

Chow, whose credits include Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, said over the weekend that he wants to free up time to work with Jack Black on a comedy about a superhero.

"If I direct 'The Green Hornet,' the superhero comedy will have to be delayed for two years," Chow said. "The timing might not be right for a superhero comedy in two years. And I want to make a movie based on an original idea."

Chow said whether he stays on to play Kato in The Green Hornet depends on his schedule.

"Green Hornet" Dead At Sony?
By Garth Franklin
Monday January 26th 2009 03:33AM


The Seth Rogen-led new film based on "The Green Hornet" radio and 60's TV show property looks to be on the verge of collapse yet again reports HitFix.

When actor/director Stephen Chow's public lack of interest in the project first emerged a while back, the move apparently made Sony Pictures nervous about developing the property.

Now, HitFix's resident film genius Drew McWeeny has more on the story "At Sundance, I heard several people say that the film was off completely. I spoke this afternoon with a source close to the film, and while they didn't call it completely dead, they did say it is "highly unlikely" that the film will shoot in 2009 at all."

so Seth Rogen got skinny for nothing! 

but it's probably better, because really this seemed like a bad idea.  for everyone.

Michel Gondry to Direct 'Green Hornet'!
by Erik Davis; Cinematical

This just in: Production Weekly is reporting via their Twitter feed that Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Be Kind Rewind) is going to direct Seth Rogen in The Green Hornet. The Hollywood Reporter has also confirmed this, and Gondry's involvement is sure to take this much talked-about project to another, fantastical level.

The Green Hornet has been plagued by issues ever since Seth Rogen announced he'd be writing the screenplay with Superbad pal Evan Goldberg and starring as The Green Hornet too. In fact, Rogen's lost a lot of weight for the role so far, and looks to be in pretty good shape (did you see him at the Oscars?). Meanwhile, Stephen Chow had originally signed on to direct and play Green Hornet's sidekick Kato, but backed out due to him wanting to direct his own superhero movie -- but according to THR, he's still expected to take on the role of sidekick (and we hope he does).

Gondry, however, would bring his wild imagination to a property that could totally use it. Assuming no one else drops out, count me in as someone who's extremely excited to watch the end result.

--------------------------------------------------

Michel Gondry steps in for 'Green Hornet'
Stephen Chow still set to play Kato in Seth Rogen starrer
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Michel Gondry is in negotiations to direct "The Green Hornet," Columbia's big-screen treatment of the classic crime-fighting hero being portrayed by Seth Rogen.

Stephen Chow had been tapped to direct but dropped out over creative differences. He is still expected to co-star as Kato, the Hornet's trusty sidekick and chauffeur.

Since Chow's departure, the project has been the subject of speculation that it was sliding into development hell, but the studio is intent on making the feature one of its 2010 tentpoles.

The choice of Gondry, the helmer behind off-the-beaten-path films such as "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "The Science of Sleep" and "Be Kind Rewind," signals that the creative direction the studio and the film's producer, Neal Moritz, are trying to take the project is one not usually associated with the usual crime-fighter movie.

"Hornet" follows the adventures of Britt Reid, a bored playboy who inherits his father's crusading newspaper, the Daily Sentinel. By night he is a masked hero, fighting crime with his sidekick Kato, who has incredible martial arts skills.

Rogen and his writer partner Evan Goldberg joined the project in July 20, 2007, as writers and co-exec producers.

this is great.  Gondry needs a script he didn't write, and this should do. 

Quote from: modage on February 24, 2009, 02:34:56 PM
Gondry needs a script he didn't write... 

agondreed.

Quote from: modage on February 24, 2009, 02:34:56 PM
...and this should do. 

not sure if Gondry should've gone green tho.

Michel see.

I'm not too happy with this decision. It sounds like a walk on job for Gondry so he won't be able to implement his style into the film too much, especially if he has no writing say. I understand Gondry can't just make personal films all the time, but doing super hero movies is different than the average commercial film because it requires so much more time to do.

And the shame is that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind came out in 2004 and he hasn't done anything in the same league as that film since then. I'm worried he could be on the path to becoming an eccentric commercial director.

Who would be an eccentric commercial director? Tim Burton?

In any case, the idea of a green hornet movie...I couldn't care less, really.

I just think the dark knight was enough of it. I'm done with all this super hero / comic shit. Tortured heroes, complex villains, allegories, money. I want to see some normal guy get into a fucked up situation like Bruce Willis in die hard or something. tom cruise in the firm.

Quote from: Alexandro on February 24, 2009, 08:26:13 PM
Who would be an eccentric commercial director? Tim Burton?

Good example.

Seth Rogen Confirms 'Green Hornet' Director: It's Michel Gondry!
'It will be a great combination of ... both of our styles,' the actor says of collaborating with the visionary director.
Source: MTV

Seth Rogen's high-profile superhero movie has a brand-new director — one of the most distinctive visionaries in Hollywood — and the star can only use three words to describe how he's feeling about it.

"It's f---ing crazy!" he said when we spoke with him Tuesday, accentuating the point with his trademark laugh (which was imitated by Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard backstage at the Oscars).

His new "Green Hornet" collaborator is none other than Michel Gondry, the eye-popping auteur who gave us "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Be Kind Rewind," and too many classic music videos to list here. Capping off an exhaustive search, the "Pineapple Express" funnyman said Gondry is the perfect director for his comedic take on the crime-fighting newspaper publisher who first slipped into his green mask in 1936.

"Me and [co-writer] Evan [Goldberg] have always been gigantic fans of [Gondry]," Rogen beamed. "We just like anyone who thinks outside the box, and there's really nobody who thinks more outside the box then he does; he's really a magician in a lot of ways."

Serving as writer, producer and star of the film that begins shooting soon, Rogen admitted that he had always been pulling for Gondry to land the high-profile gig — and even helped the French filmmaker get an inside track. "I've actually been e-mailing with him for a really long time, because he was involved with the project a long time ago," he explained. "With the permission of nobody, I sent him our script ... to get his input and ideally convince the studio to meet with him. They were skeptical of ... I wouldn't say his ability to make a giant budget studio movie, but his willingness to make a giant budget studio movie. But he loved the script, he totally got it, which a lot of [potential directors] just didn't."

Gondry loved the "Green Hornet" script so much, in fact, that he began filming it immediately. "To convince the studio to let him do it, he filmed a fight scene on his own," Rogen marveled. "He just hired stunt men and did it by himself! Just to show some of the stuff he could do, some of the weird filming techniques he has and some of the stuff he can pull off. I mean, this is something he did in two days and it was instantly unlike anything you've ever seen before. It was impossible not to hire him once he presented what he could do for it."

Now, Rogen and Goldberg are looking forward to blending their unique "Superbad" sensibility with a decades-old crime-fighter and a thoroughly modern filmmaker. And while he assured us that the result will prominently feature Gondry's knack for making ordinary things look extraordinary, he was quick to say that the film won't simply be the Gondry we've come to expect.

"My direct quote to [Gondry] right before he met with the studio was, 'You have to convince them they're not gonna show up on set one day and everything is gonna be made out of cardboard,' " laughed Rogen. "And he said, 'I can definitely do that.' "

"["The Green Hornet"] will be a great combination of both of our movies, of both of our styles," Rogen said of the film, which hits theaters June 25, 2010. "It should have the type of conversational tone and comedy that me and Evan have been doing — and some of the action that we have been starting to try to do — along with the wild, visual imagination and funny awkward sensibility that he's been doing."

this is great news as far as I'm concerned.  I'm a little burned out on the recent flood of Superhero movies too, but this team of Rogen/Goldberg, Gondry, and Chow (if he's still in) working on a big-budget tentpole type summer film sounds like a match made in movie heaven.  I think this is basically the best thing that Gondry could've jumped into.  If it flies like it should he'll be in a position to do practically whatever he wants. 

and I'm pretty sure Gondry already is an eccentric commercial director.  A damn fine one.  Not such a great screenwriter though. 

BREAKING: Seth Rogen & Facebook Confirm 'Green Hornet' Almost Had 'Saw' Director
Source: MTV

By now, you've most likely heard the beyond-awesome news that Seth Rogen's "Green Hornet" movie will be directed by Mr. Michel Gondry, one of the most visually-stunning directors in Hollywood. But, being a movie buff, I'm always intrigued by the "What if?" possibilities of Steve McQueen starring in "The Bodyguard," Christopher Walken as Han Solo, and so on.

Which is why I was intrigued when, moments after the Gondry news broke, I noticed that my Facebook friend James Wan had changed his status. "Damn you Michel Gondry *shaking fists*," read the message from the "Saw" director. "Oh well the better man won."

Moments later, James took the status update down. But lucky for us, Seth isn't the type of Hollywood phony who hides behind "no comments" and the like.

"Oh yeah?" he started laughing when I surprised him with James' Facebook status.

"Well, we were just given the mandate to bring the studio directors we were fans of," Rogen explained of the months-long process of picking a filmmaker. "And the discussion would begin from there."

Discussing the reason why Wan became part of that process, Rogen revealed: "Me and [co-writer] Evan [Goldberg] saw 'Death Sentence' and thought it was incredible. As far as action movies go, that's one of the better ones I've seen in recent years."

"So yeah we definitely talked to him," Rogen said of their meetings, adding: "I would definitely love to do something else."

Instead, Rogen's "Green Hornet" will hit theaters June 25th, 2010 with "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" director Gondry behind the camera. And as amazing as that should be, it would also be cool to see Rogen teamed with James Wan's brutal directorial style someday in the future.

Seth Rogen Reveals More About Michel Gondry's Secret 'Green Hornet' Audition Tape & Fight Scene
Source: MTV

Recently, we conducted the first interview with the incomparable Seth Rogen following his announcement that visionary director Michel Gondry would be directing him in the soon-to-shoot movie reimagining of "The Green Hornet." But we were really intrigued when he revealed that the "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" director had already filmed a key action scene on his own dime.

"To convince the studio to let him do it, he filmed a fight scene on his own," Rogen told us. "He just hired stunt men and did it by himself! Just to show some of the stuff he could do, some of the weird filming techniques he has and some of the stuff he can pull off. I mean, this is something he did in two days and it was instantly unlike anything you've ever seen before."

Naturally, I had to press him for more details, but the "Pineapple Express" star struggled for words. "I can't describe it man," he laughed.

And true, it may be impossible for any of us to try explaining the visuals in something like "Science of Sleep" or "Be Kind Rewind," but nevertheless Rogen's struggle to describe the fight scene gives us a peek at his unorthodox plan to marry his own films with those of Gondry.

"I mean, he's able to do things with frame rates and...I mean in shots, just ways you've never quite seem them work before," he explained of Gondry's top-secret audition footage, which we can only pray ends up on the eventual DVD in 2010. "I'm sure it was all done very simply, but it's weird. I've tried to describe it to people, and I literally just have a hard time. It's hard to do without acting it out, so over the phone it'd be impossible."

Maybe if we're lucky, next time we interview Seth on camera we can get him to do a full-on "Green Hornet" fight scene demonstration for us. But until then, we'll just contemplate Rogen, Gondry, frame rate manipulation and all the coolness it will yield when the movie starts shooting in a few weeks.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fscifiwire.com%2Fassets_c%2F2009%2F02%2FGreen_Hornet-_2010_film-thumb-550x279-13901.jpg&hash=9ea59c20287eb1cfef29e01fc3a87abb89d8a463)

Rogen: Green Hornet will include homage to a famous cowboy
Source: SciFi Wire

Seth Rogen says that his upcoming Green Hornet movie will mention that his character, Britt Reid, is the grandnephew of the Lone Ranger.

"Yes, there is something to that. John Reid was the Lone Ranger," said Rogen in an interview with SCI FI Wire. Rogen said the script, which he had a hand in writing with Evan Goldberg, went through many different rewrites. Kung Fu Hustle director Stephen Chow bowed out as director, and now Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Michel Gondry is taking over the project, but Chow will still play Kato, the sidekick to the Green Hornet.

"We had written in some kind of subtle reference," Rogen said. "I think that it's [subtle] mostly because a different studio owns the Lone Ranger than owns the Green Hornet, like Jerry Bruckheimer owns Lone Ranger or something." (Bruckheimer announced at a Disney party last September that he planned to reinvent the Lone Ranger franchise, but no further details have been announced.)

Rogen explained that the mention of the rival superhero comes merely in passing. "In our script, that's really not a significant plot point in any way," he said. "They will say the line, and if they let us keep it, then they let us keep it, but if they don't, then we won't."

The Los Angeles Times reported on Jan. 26 that there's a possibility that Adam Sandler will play a superhero in The Green Hornet, and there is speculation that he could be a descendant of The Lone Ranger. The Green Hornet is scheduled for a 2010 release.

This is going to be awesome.

Seth Rogen admits Green Hornet will mix action, comedy

Seth Rogen, writer and co-star of the upcoming Green Hornet, told SCI FI Wire that the film will possess elements of both comedy and action.

"To me, the two aren't mutually exclusive," Rogen said in an interview last week in Los Angeles while promoting his upcoming 3-D animated movie Monsters vs. Aliens. "You can have a big action epic with a lot of funny parts."

Green Hornet is a big-screen adaptation of the superhero franchise, which was adapted as a popular 1960s television series and was inspired by the original radio program created in the 1930s. Hornet follows the adventures of Britt Reid, a bored playboy who inherits his father's crusading newspaper, the Daily Sentinel. By night he is a masked hero, fighting crime with his sidekick, Kato (Stephen Chow), who has incredible martial-arts skills. Rogen and his writer partner Evan Goldberg joined the project in July 20, 2007, as writers and co-executive producers.

Rogen, whose film projects to date have been primarily comedic in nature, said that the forthcoming update will evoke other action films that feature an undercurrent of humor.

"I've seen the early Indiana Jones movies in theaters, and they kill," Rogen said. "There's laughs throughout the whole thing, and it doesn't feel like a comedy per se. It just feels like something that's trying to solicit reactions from the audience, and we think of movies like True Lies and stuff like that. That's more kind of what we're going for with this."

Seth Rogen: June start for Green Hornet, but no cheesy F/X
Source: SciFi Wire

When Stephen Chow was set to direct The Green Hornet, one might have expected CGI comedy in the Kung Fu Hustle style. With Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) taking over, could the crime fighter battle homemade special effects?

Co-writer and star Seth Rogen has already acknowledged that he and Evan Goldberg are writing a script for Gondry and has described their take on the Hornet as the ultimate story of a hero and his sidekick. The Green Hornet is that rare superhero whose sidekick is more famous than he is. Legendary martial artist Bruce Lee played Kato in the '60s TV series. Who even played the Hornet? (It was Van Williams.)

Just getting the movie made seems like an accomplishment after filmmakers from Christopher McQuarrie to Kevin Smith tried to get it started before Rogen, Chow and Gondry. Rogen updated a group of reporters on the film's progress Tuesday in Beverly Hills, Calif., where he was promoting Observe & Report. The following Q&A features edited excerpts from that interview.

After all these false starts and director changeovers, when do you actually start Green Hornet?

Rogen: To film? It should—right now we're scheduled sometime at the end of June.

Will Michel Gondry be able to do his homemade style of effects?

Rogen: You know, he actually really does not want to. Me and Evan have actually come up with [ways]. We've approached him with ideas, like, "Hey, maybe we could do something like this. You could do you some of your weird people made out of string and s--t like that." He's like, "No, I don't want to do any of that." He's like, "The fact that you think I want to do that drives me crazy and makes me never want to do anything like that again." You know, he hates being predictable and repetitive and doing what's been done before, so as soon as he starts to feel like he's expected to do something, then he doesn't want to do it at all.

Is it still the hero/sidekick story you've described before?

Rogen: Yeah, and I would say if anything, it's taken on a much greater [scope]. At first we were kind of resisting the notion of an origin story, but then we realized we could kind of embrace it and then play with that idea; it could be a lot better. So that's something we've added.

With your busy schedule, will you be able to do the sci-fi film Kevin Smith wants you for?

Rogen: I don't know. He's doing that other movie right now. He hasn't written it as far as I know.

EXCL: Gondry Talks About The Green Hornet
Source: Edward Douglas; ComingSoon

Earlier today, ComingSoon.net/Superhero Hype! had a chance to talk to visionary director Michel Gondry about his new self-released DVD compilation "More Videos: Before and After DVD 1," which you can buy tomorrow from Mssr. Gondry's Official Site, which will launch sometime tomorrow. We talked about his process for coming up with some of the diverse music videos in the second collection, which include his reunion with Beck and Bjork, his music video (and jam session!) with Sir Paul McCartney, and lots and lots of great extras. We need a couple more days to finish that interview up, but just to whet your appetite, we want to share a few things he said about his next movie, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's update of pulp crimefighter The Green Hornet.

Gondry doesn't have a lot to say about the project yet, since he joined it roughly six weeks ago, but he confirmed that it was going to be a true collaboration between Gondry, Rogen and Goldberg. "Seth and Evan, they are the writers, but they really listen to my ideas on the movie. I think the story is getting much better and better and I feel like I'm really a part of the process."

We asked him whether the movie might have a similar tone as either of Rogen and Goldberg's last two movies Superbad and Pineapple Express, to which he responded, "I think we're all trying to be a little different than we were before on this project, just by interacting with each other and the producer Neil Moritz adds a different taste as well, so all that will create a new universe."

Since Gondry is probably best known for the unique styles of animation he brings to both his films and music videos, we asked if we might see some of those animated visuals in the comic book movie. "No animation, maybe on the credits but I'm not sure," he said.

Look for Gondry's Official Site to be open for business tomorrow. For the time being, it will be the only place you can purchase his new DVD collection, "More Videos: Before and After DVD 1", and then check back later this week for our full interview with Gondry with more details about that and other projects.

Michel Gondry on how he'll helm Green Hornet and stay true to himself

Michel Gondry, director of the upcoming superhero movie Green Hornet, told SCI FI Wire that he is looking forward to combining his idiosyncratic ideas with the demands of a big-budget studio action movie.

"It's all going to be something different, but that's successful, so I guess there is no problem now," Gondry said in an exclusive interview Monday. "We have a producer, Neal Moritz, who's pretty damn successful; he released Fast and Furious, which had [one of] the biggest openings of all time, so he's going to guide us in our differences, and so far all of my ideas, he loves them and says 'I like the ideas, and I'm open to them.'"

Green Hornet is based upon the 1960s television serial—which was itself based on 1940s radio serials—about a masked hero who fights crime. Gondry admitted that he joined the project after it was already underway, but said he looks forward to collaborating with Moritz, as well as star and co-writer Seth Rogen. "Of course, I have no choice," Gondry said. "I got on board a project that was already sort of going. But I think by them meeting me and me meeting them, we'll be in a very strong place."

SCI FI Wire spoke exclusively to Gondry via telephone during the promotion of his new collection of short films and music videos, titled Michel Gondry 2: More Videos. The following is an edited version of that interview.

You've talked about how Dave Chappelle's Block Party and Science of Sleep taught you things that you applied to Be Kind Rewind. Did the process of doing this music video collection teach you things about doing Green Hornet?

Gondry: Well, yeah. Everything I do, I learn from it. When I finished Human Nature and before I started Eternal Sunshine [of the Spotless Mind], I made a book full of thoughts how to improve my directing skill. Some of them were just bad reviews that I decided to take seriously; although sometimes it's really personal and it's not constructive, sometimes they say something that may be true, and sometimes if I was upset by a comment, I tried to find out why I was upset. Generally, if I was upset about a comment, it was because there was some truth in the comment. So I looked into that, and I've still got this notebook about what to learn from my mistakes and what was successful and how to combine what I do well and what I don't do well to do better. I had lost it, and I was sort of upset about it, and I just found it back two weeks ago, and I read it again and it's very amazing that I did that. I took all of the things that were in the way of me being better, and I wrote them down, and I find a solution for each problem. I think if you take the time and effort to write the problem on a piece of paper, then you can find a solution.

I generally don't think it's worth doing a list, but I think if you make the effort of writing your problem down, then part of the problem is solved. You can think of solutions and then try them. That's not a direct answer to your question, but that's how I work, and I connect these projects. I have a level of frustration in the outcome, and I try to see, like, to find ways to meet expectations where there's satisfaction, and I like to find ways to enhance the satisfaction and then to make it better. Maybe it doesn't translate in the work—some people tell me that I only did one good movie, Eternal Sunshine, and the rest is crap, but there is stuff I learned. I did the other films on my own, and there was a progression between Human Nature and Eternal Sunshine, and it was exactly the same team, and I think there is a progression as well, even if it's not on the same scale or I managed to do the writing myself. I'm always trying to find something new to do, and sometimes it's restricting that people want to condemn me for trying new things.

You've described Green Hornet as something different from what you've done in the past. Is this a situation where you're kind of going to the mountain, or are you trying to do something new?

Gondry: ... People like to say it's quirky, but I think it works by trying to be as human as possible. I'll try to portray a human quality I see in real life and I appreciate through the medium. That's my job, to not use the film to camouflage moments of a person's personality, but to reveal that personality, and I think this is a very clear and broad statement, maybe something to do with feeling good or this type of direction, so I don't see why this should not be easy for people to appreciate.

Is there a lesson you took away from the mixed reception to Be Kind Rewind that you are applying to Green Hornet, which is going to be a much bigger piece of populist entertainment?

Gondry: Well, I'm not writing it, for one thing. People kind of blame it on the writing. I mean, I say one simple thing: The country where [Be Kind Rewind] did really great, where it was a big hit, was England. It was the only country that understood the film and did proper promotion. It was the only country where Jack Black went to promote the film.

I guess he did promotion in America, but he was off doing tons of promotion for Kung Fu Panda. Even when I was in Japan promoting Be Kind Rewind, he was there, and he knew I was there promoting because he was there to do Kung Fu Panda, and I think in this kind of movie, you need your actor to be behind the film. Not that I want to blame him; I think that was great, he brought a lot, but I think in terms of the promotion, he was a little short. But anyway, this movie naturally is [bigger], with more things to be nervous about.

EXCLUSIVE: 'Green Hornet' Director Michel Gondry Reveals New Fight Filming Techniques
Source: MTV

Ever since Seth Rogen told us about the top-secret fight scene that director Michel Gondry shot with his own money as an audition for "The Green Hornet" movie, I've been dying to know what visual tricks the distinctive filmmaker has up his sleeve. Now, Gondry is finally talking about the groundbreaking technique he'll be bringing to the film.

"It was not elaborate," Gondry modestly began the MTV News interview. "I'm glad [Rogen is even] paying any attention to what I'm suggesting."

"[He did it] to show off some of the stuff he could do, some of the weird filming techniques he has and some of the stuff he can pull off," Rogen tried to explain to us at the time. "It was instantly unlike anything you've ever seen before."

Gondry explains: "I change the speed of the camera at different spots in the image at different times. So, it seems like they're in the same world but at different times, and then they're back together."

So, when "Green Hornet" hits theaters in June 2010, Gondry will have Hornet and Kato battling groups of evildoers — while seemingly battling on different planes of existence? "I want to say it simply, because I don't want people to steal my idea. So, I'm keeping it a little bit obscure," explained Gondry, whose visual trickery is on display in his amazing new DVD, "More Videos," now on sale. "[The camera] speeds up and slows down, but different times for different character's images."

Although it's a little tricky to comprehend with the written word, Gondry basically plans to reinvent the fight scene by having Green Hornet moving slowly, Kato moving super-fast, the villains at normal speed — and then mixing it all up repeatedly. "So, one will go fast and the other will go slow, and then they'll meet," he explained. "It's [as if] they're in different dimensions, but when they touch each other they come into the same dimension."

Rumor: Cameron Diaz mulls The Green Hornet
Source: SciFi Wire

Seth Rogen's update of The Green Hornet was supposed to start sometime at the end of last month, but that date has obviously slipped (to Aug. 3, according to The Hollywood Reporter).

Now comes news that Cameron Diaz (The Box) is considering joining Rogen and Stephen Chow as the female lead in the movie, a new take on the superhero franchise originally spawned as a radio serial and adapted as a TV show in the 1960s (co-starring Bruce Lee as Kato).


Here's how Entertainment Weekly reported the news:

A deal hasn't been sealed yet, but sources tell EW that she is in early talks for the role. Her reps at CAA declined comment. Michel Gondry is set to direct the film based on a script by Rogen and his writing partner, Evan Goldberg. Shooting is supposed to begin shortly, with a release date already set for July 9, 2010.

Diaz has played a variety of roles recently, including the mom in the tear-jerker My Sister's Keeper and another more morally compromised mom in Richard Kelly's upcoming The Box, a sci-fi movie based on Richard Matheson's short story "Button, Button."

Well, it was a good ride while it lasted.

Fuck you Cameron Diaz.

I don't know, this project is already pretty nuts. Does adding her really do much harm? And what's up with all the Cameron hating anyhow. I think she kinda rocks.

She picks shitty scripts. She hasn't been in anything good since Gangs of New York and she kind of sucked in that. She showed so much promise in Being John Malkovich but decided to go the Rom-Com route instead.

Stephen Chow leaves 'Hornet'
Will no longer play Kato in the feature
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Stephen Chow is Kato no more.

The actor-filmmaker has walked away from Columbia's "Green Hornet" feature after what the studio characterized as a "mutual and amicable decision by both sides to move on."

Seth Rogen is starring in the big-screen treatment of the crime-fighting hero, with Michel Gondry directing.

Chow initially was the director of the project but dropped out in December because of creative differences. At the time, the CAA-repped actor still was on board to play the Hornet's sidekick and chauffeur.

The movie, which now has Cameron Diaz aboard as the female lead, is on track to begin production in September.

booooooo

Saw that coming from miles away.

I don't know why I don't care....I just don't.....strange. I want to care.

Seth Rogen: Hornet problems? What problems?
Source: SciFi Wire

Seth Rogen seemed mellow about the various hurdles his Green Hornet film has faced and assured reporters on Saturday that the movie is going forward despite rumors to the contrary.

Rogen spoke about the proposed superhero movie for the first time since news broke this week that Stephen Chow officially dropped out as sidekick Kato, which followed news that the film's release date and production date have been postponed by weeks.

"It's going great," Rogen said sincerely in a group interview today in Santa Monica, Calif., where he was promoting the comedy Funny People. "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."

Rogen explained that the news of Chow's departure made the rounds only lately, but added that he and the filmmakers have known about it for a while and are already actively pursuing new Katos. "To me we haven't had a Kato since April, and we're looking," he said. "We're kind of in the same boat we were in beforehand."

As for the frequent delays, Rogen cited the economic downturn. Low DVD sales have made the studios more cautious about funding major projects. Also, Rogen affirmed, he, co-writer Evan Goldberg and director Michel Gondry are making an atypical studio blockbuster.

"You know, we're not trying to make what they would probably consider to be a 100 percent safe version of a movie like this," Rogen said. "We like to push the envelope in some directions. We like to do things that we find interesting and new and original. You bring Michel Gondry into the equation, and that opens up a whole new bag of worms."

In the same way Rogen's comedies are collaborative, with the actors improvising and writing jokes for each other, Rogen has also sought input from his gang for Green Hornet.

"Right now we're making a big movie and not many of our friends have made a movie this scale," he said. "So we're inviting everyone imaginable to come and just see what it's like and give us their ideas and throw in their input, have them learn from what we're doing and to get all their ideas in the process."

Funny People is Rogen's last starring role until he films The Green Hornet, but he teased that he may make an appearance at this week's San Diego Comic-Con to offer a preview. "There may be a little something at Comic-Con. I never know what I can say and what I can't say."

The Green Hornet is scheduled to open July 9, 2010.

Nicolas Cage in Talks for The Green Hornet
Source: Variety

Columbia Pictures is in early talks with Nicolas Cage to play the gangster villain in The Green Hornet, reports Variety.

Cameron Diaz is negotiating to play a reporter and love interest in the Michel Gondry-directed film that stars Seth Rogen as the masked crime fighter.

The picture is moving full steam ahead for a fall start date, even as the studio looks to replace Stephen Chow, who was going to play sidekick Kato. Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote the script and Neal Moritz is producing through his Original Films.

The Green Hornet is targeting a July 9, 2010 release

"Hey Nicolas, wanna be in this Green Hornet movie?"
--Does it pay?
"Yes."
--I'm in.

SDCC: Michel Gondry Raps About The Green Hornet
by Kevin Kelly; Cinematical

This might be one of the strangest videos you'll ever see on Cinematical. Over my several short years of movie coverage, I've witnessed some strange things: I actually saw Crispin Glover's "What in the hell is this" film experience What Is It?, watched Kevin Smith double over in pain from a leg cramp during an interview, and kicked Jim Carrey in the foot.

However, nothing beats Michel Gondry free-form rapping to the sounds of his son Paul beatboxing. Oh, and he's rapping about the Green Hornet's car, Black Beauty, which Sony had just unveiled after Preview Night at Comic-Con. Truly bizarre. Plus he gives us a short preview of the movie's opening scene ... and maybe the theme song?


http://video.aol.com/aolvideo/AOLMovies/cinematical-at-comic-con-michel-gondry-beatbox/30437742001

(shrug) I can't see it.  Gives me a "can't find what you're looking for" page.  If I were more proactive I'd figure out the problem or relink to a working video, but uh, I've had a couple of drinks and it's late, so...

Taiwanese popster Jay Chou to play Hornet's Kato
Source: SciFi Wire

Sony Pictures tweeted that Taiwan musician-actor-filmmaker Jay Chou has been hired to replace Stephen Chow as Kato in Seth Rogen's upcoming The Green Hornet.

The 30-year-old pop star recently made the transition to movies and is reportedly a Bruce Lee fan; he has appeared in three Chinese-language movies.

Chow was initially signed to direct the movie and to play Kato, but dropped out.

Chou joins Nicolas Cage, Rogen and Cameron Diaz in the movie, which is to be directed by Michel Gondry, with a reported fall start date.

Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote the script and Neal Moritz is producing through his Original Films. The movie is eyeing a July 2010 release.

The Green Hornet is based upon the 1960s television serial—which was itself based on 1940s radio serials—about a masked hero who fights crime.

he's not funny.

Edward James Olmos joins cast of Green Hornet
Source: SciFi Wire

BSG, Miami Vice and Blade Runner stalwart Edward James Olmos has joined the cast of Michel Gondry's upcoming The Green Hornet, according to Hollywood Snitch.

Olmos joins an increasingly impressive cast on the superhero flick, which as of now includes well-known comic book fan Nicolas Cage (who is currently trying to develop a follow up to Ghost Rider, will lend his voice to the upcoming Astro Boy, and will star in the adaptation of Mark Millar's Kick Ass comic book), Cameron Diaz, Jay Chou as Kato, and Seth Rogen as Britt Reid, aka The Green Hornet.

The Green Hornet is currently scheduled for a July, 2010 release.

Now, if Box Office Mojo is to be believed (and they're pretty reliable), Seth Rogen and Michel Gondry's The Green Hornet will now debut over a year after making a modest presentation at this past Comic-Con, having been bumped back from next July to the following December for reasons unknown.

It's going to be an awards contender!

On set pics:

http://www.crazycritics.com/page/the-green-hornet-pics-of?

No Green Hornet for Nicolas Cage
Source:ComingSoon

While he was never officially cast, Heat Vision reports that Nicolas Cage won't be playing the villain in Columbia Pictures' The Green Hornet, which director Michel Gondry has started filming in Los Angeles.

Sources for the Blog say that the studio is on the hunt for a new actor to play the villain in the comic book adaptation. No scenes with Cage were shot for the movie.

Columbia is planning a December 17, 2010 release for the pic, which stars Seth Rogen, Cameron Diaz, Jay Chou, Edward James Olmos, David Harbour and Tom Wilkinson.

Hooray!

'Basterds' Baddie to Replace Nic Cage in 'Green Hornet'?
Source: Cinematical

When Nicolas Cage stepped down as the villain of Michel Gondry's The Green Hornet, we and others started kicking around names of those actors that we'd most like to see become the bad guy opposite Seth Rogen's masked crime-fighter, and if Deadline Hollywood's Nikki Finke is to be believed -- and for once, I hope that she is -- the vacancy left by Cage will be filled by none other than the AICN-suggested Christoph Waltz.

The 52-year-old Austrian actor is best known for his scene-stealing turn as Col. Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, for which he won the Best Actor award at this year's Cannes Film Festival and for which he's a likely contender for this year's Best Supporting Actor Oscar. That was a villainous performance both fierce and playful, which sounds like just the thing that a Michel Gondry-helmed serial-based action-comedy. (And at this moment, isn't it fitting how much more interesting he and we might find this rumor to be over facts?)

If this is true and the shoot goes according to schedule, we should be looking to see The Green Hornet in theaters around December of 2010.

Yeah Baby Yeah!

Nicolas Cage on Turning Down The Green Hornet
Source: The Canadian Press

On Monday, it was announced that Inglourious Basterds actor Christoph Waltz had been cast as the villain "Chudnofsky" in The Green Hornet. Nicolas Cage was in talks for the role earlier and talked to The Canadian Press about his reasons for not coming on board:

Cage says he "wasn't interested in just being just a straight-up bad guy who was killing people willy-nilly."

"'The Green Hornet' was something that I wanted to do, I think Michel Gondry is very talented and I had hoped it would work but I think Seth Rogen and Michel had a different take on the character," said Cage, who starred in 2007's supernatural comic book film, "Ghost Rider."

"I had to have some humanity and to try to give it something where you could understand why the character was the way he was but I don't think there was enough time to develop it."

We assume Christoph Waltz will have a different take on the character. We'll find out on December 17, 2010, if that date sticks.

Good Thing. We want to remember Cage as Ghost Rider and no one else.

First image of Seth Rogen as The Green Hornet!
Source: SciFi Wire

First a bomb scare, now this: The first image of Seth Rogen and Jay Chou in full costume as The Green Hornet and Kato, courtesy of SplashNews.

Now we know there's a lot of animosity toward Rogen for taking on this franchise, but honestly: He does kinda look like the character, right?

Rogen plays Britt Reid, the newspaper entrepreneur by day and masked superhero by night. Jay Chou takes over the role of chauffeur/martial-arts expert Kato, Cameron Diaz is Lenore Case, and Inglourious Basterds' Christoph Waltz plays the villain, Chudnofsky. Rogen has described the script, which he wrote with partner Evan Goldberg, as the story of a hero and his sidekick. Michel Gondry directs. Green Hornet opens Dec. 17, 2010.


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Anvil to Rock Out for The Green Hornet!
Source: L.A. Times, Superhero Hype!

In a story about the official start of the Oscar push for Sacha Gervasi's documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil, L.A. Times reporter Pete Hammond mentions that the band recently shot a scene for Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's take on the pulp hero The Green Hornet, currently shooting with director Michel Gondry at the helm.

There's no mention whether the band will be playing themselves, but the scene they filmed has them playing in a club before they.... SPOILER ALERT!!

"literally explode."

Of course, the appearance of Anvil does raise a lot of questions about the time period in which the movie is set, because the original Green Hornet mainly appeared from the '30s through the '60s on a series of radio shows, film serials and a television show before disappearing, and the band's music would seemingly indicate a more modern approach to the character.

In fact, it's rather apropos for Anvil to be involved since they themselves fell off the map in the mid-'80s only to have their career resurrected in a big way when Anvil! The Story of Anvil premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last year and after a successful tour across the country earlier this year in which the band played a short set following a screening of the movie, the band was asked to open for AC/DC on their recent summer tour, including a show in front of tens of thousands at the enormous Giants Stadium. Anvil's 13th record, "This is Thirteen," was rereleased by VH-1 Classic Records on September 15 and the band is about to head out on their own headlining tour.

As far as their most recent movie appearance, you can see how it all turns out when The Green Hornet opens on December 22, 2010. Meanwhile, Anvil! The Story of Anvil was just released on DVD earlier this week and you can order it from Amazon.com.

Seth Rogen tells us not to worry about The Green Hornet
Source: SciFi Wire

All the problems that have faced Seth Rogen's Green Hornet film have made us worry: It lost both a co-star and a director when Stephen Chow dropped out, production and release dates have been delayed, and there was even a bomb scare on the set.

But Rogen—who stars, produces and co-wrote the script with Evan Goldberg—tells fans not to worry; he's got it all under control.

"Honestly, I think as a producer, a lot of your work is done before now," Rogen told reporters on a call on Thursday while promoting NBC's Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins From Outer Space. "It's hiring the right people and making sure all the elements are in place and then trusting them to do what you hired them to do. But I'm there all the time, so I can make sure everything's going well. There's a lot of pressure. I understand that. I've been talking about this movie for years, and if it sucks, no one will be more disappointed than me, believe me."

Rogen plays Britt Reid, the newspaper publisher who dons a mask and costume to become the crime-fighting Green Hornet. Michel Gondry directs. Just being on the set is a minor relief, Rogen says: There were times when it looked like Columbia Pictures might pull the plug altogether.

"It is, I gotta say, an enormous one," Rogen said. "You've still got to make it awesome, so the relief isn't [completely] there yet. I will say, I take a huge amount of the pressure. I understand that. I understand that it's my face on it when it literally comes out. Even if it sucks for another reason, people will blame me, and that's why I have to be so involved to try to make sure that it doesn't suck."

Whatever pressure Rogen feels, it's not enough to put a damper on his sense of humor. "I will blame Gondry if it sucks, though," Rogen said with a laugh. "No, I'm just joking. We're all in it."

The Green Hornet is due Dec. 17, 2010.

Michel Gondry doesn't want to hear your Green Hornet complaints
Source: SciFi Wire

Michel Gondry, speaking at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas, previewed his vision for the upcoming superhero movie The Green Hornet and said it will be more familiar than his previous quirky movies, which include Be Kind Rewind and The Science of Sleep, but will still look like a Gondry film.

"I think the way the action unfolds, there is a sort of sense of geometry in the dynamics in the scenes," Gondry said in an exclusive interview on Sunday. "I think that corresponds pretty much to my style."

The Green Hornet stars Seth Rogen as Britt Reid, a newspaper publisher by day and masked crime fighter by night, accompanied by his faithful sidekick and martial-arts expert Kato, played by Jay Chou (stepping in for Stephen Chow, who was also originally slated to direct but dropped out). The movie will also feature Cameron Diaz and newly minted Oscar winner Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds).

Gondry is proud of his original vision, because, he said, there's really no comic-book basis for the crime-fighting character, who appeared first in a radio series. "Let's set the record straight," Gondry said. "There is no comic book of the Green Hornet, so I don't want people to tell me, 'You didn't respect the comic book,' because I dare them to show me the comic book. I know that Kevin Smith did one lately. It's probably great, but that's his vision. There's no right to claim Green Hornet is a comic-book figure. It's a radio show to start with, and ... a TV show from the '60s, so that's what there is. If people think we owe to follow the rule of a comic book, there is no comic book of The Green Hornet, so f--k that. I'm sorry, but I don't owe anything to any aficionado of the comic book. I'm doing a film."

Gondry also promised that the movie won't look like The Dark Knight or Spider-Man with Gondry at the helm. "I'm asked, and there is a set of rules we had to follow to use a character that existed, but that's about it," Gondry continued. "For the rest, I'm doing the best film I can."

Gondry also promised a lighter comedic touch that's been missing from recent comic-book movies.

"And he has a real drama in his story," Gondry said. "So it's going to have some of the criteria that people want to have in such a movie."

The Green Hornet opens Dec. 22.

Have people been hounding him about a comic-book lately?

My new Michel Gondry impression:

"IT'S NOT A FUCKING COMIC BOOK!"

But with a French accent.  Nobody will get it.  It'll be awesome.

"IZ NOOT A FOOKEEN COMIQUE BOOKE!"

"...iz noot!"

'Green Hornet' Trailer Is Coming Soon, Says Michel Gondry
Source: MTV

It's been a quiet few months on the "Green Hornet" front lately, but that shouldn't be taken as a sign that things are slowing down on the Seth Rogen-starring film. In fact, director Michel Gondry says fans will see the first trailer at some point in the near future.

"There's a trailer that's been made," the filmmaker told MTV News during this weekend's South by Southwest Festival. "[It should be out] in the spring or summer, actually."

Based on Gondry's description of the trailer, fans will learn a good amount about Rogen and Jay Chou's characters of Britt Reid and Kato, the two heroes at the center of the action. But it's not all about character development, as Gondry promised plenty of violence in the upcoming trailer.

"You see Kato and Seth deciding why they want to be crime fighters," he said. "Then you see images of their completion. It's pretty violent, but with a good spirit."

Despite the lack of recent information, Gondry said that all was well on "The Green Hornet." According to the filmmaker, the relationship between himself, Rogen, the studio and various producers couldn't be healthier.

"It's a great collaboration," he said. "I really enjoy working with the producers. All of those guys happen to think very fast and make very random decisions, but they turned out to be successful."

ppl will be calling it a comic book film cos everyone will also be calling it the fucking Green LANTERN.

poor gondry can't catch a break.

'Green Hornet' will be converted to 3D; release date pushed
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Sony on Thursday announced Hollywood's latest 3D conversion, with the studio vowing to execute the "Green Hornet" enhancements in top quality and produce all of its visual effects shots in original 3D.

To accommodate the work, the Seth Rogen starrer will move from its previous release date of Dec. 22 to Jan. 14. The move to next year's Martin Luther King weekend represents the most recent of four dates penciled in for the comics-based actioner's domestic debut at different points.

To allow the "Hornet" move, Sony will shift comics-inspired vampire actioner "Priest" from a Jan. 14 launch to March 4. "Priest" has long been tagged as a 3D production.

Sony domestic distribution president Rory Bruer said director Michel Gondry planned from the start of production for the possiblity of "Hornet" being released in 3D, though his work to date didn't include any 3D cameras.

"He always kind of shot it having the possiblity of having it in 3D in mind," Bruer said. "It's got a lot of depth and amazing visuals."

That's it.  I'm cryogenically freezing myself.  Thaw me out when 3D is over.

Great. Please don't let Gondry go the hack route. He's one of the good guys!

I'm glad I'll be in a city that only has 2D options for these movies. I'd have to drive over an hour to find one with any 3D capabilities so go me and my ruralness.

wait, wait now, this may be cool...

Quote from: 72teeth on April 23, 2010, 03:42:46 AM
wait, wait now, this may be cool...

How? The fact that they didn't even shoot it in 3D, but want to convert it screams gimmick.

Don't do it, Gonz!

It's probably not up to Gondry. It's becoming standard protocol for films to be transferred in post-production to 3D and since these movies are making more money, they are here to stay. This isn't just a trend.

yep.
and people don't give a fuck wether it was shot in 3d or converted later. supposedly some very naive persons are saying audiences get "sophisticated pretty quickly" but that is just wishful thinking at best. no one I know seemed to mind that Alice in wonderland 3d looked murky and crappy, colorless and lifeless compared to the 2d tv spots. no one in the normal audience cares that clash of the titans 3d is ages away from the avatar experience. look...people don't even notice when films are out of focus or when the volume is too low. people don't notice anything. people don't complain when they watch a fullscreen football game on a widescreen tv and everyone in it looks like overweight dwarves. so yeah, get used to this shit.

i remember there was an interview with Fincher awhile back on how people don't know how to calibrate their fucking tv's...
(sic) "I'm going to lose it if i have to see one more television where people are chasing each other with purple guns..."
since then, ive always toned my tv by making sure black guns are black.

It's true, the general moviegoing public are pretty clueless when it comes to these things, they only believe what they're told and contemplation proceeds no further.

3d won't stop til they wise up.

I say we burn this mother fucker down.

amen to alexandro's post.

I recently saw some movie, cant remember which one, pretty sure it sucked, anyway, every 15 seconds it made a sound like it was getting stuck or something, clearly it had to do with the projection as the frame too was out of focus for a moment, so I said to my friends:

me: don't you notice this??
them: what?
me: every 5 seconds this damn thing does this noise, and gets out of focus or something.
them: oh, yeah kinda, who cares.

I rushed outside and said to some dumb employee, hey this thing is being projected wrong, please tell them to fix it. of course they didn't and we saw the whole thing like that.

same thing happened with that mel gibson action film that is boring as hell btw, my meathead friends didn't care either only this time I didn't go outside to tell them to fix it, the movie wasn't worth the effort.

Quote from: 72teeth on April 23, 2010, 12:38:22 PM
i remember there was an interview with Fincher awhile back on how people don't know how to calibrate their fucking tv's...
(sic) "I'm going to lose it if i have to see one more television where people are chasing each other with purple guns..."
since then, ive always toned my tv by making sure black guns are black.

haha.  :yabbse-thumbup:

Well, the good thing is movies that will come out in a year or so will start to be more centered for 3D effects so we won't be getting these in between 3D movies like Clash of the Titans or even UP. Also, I imagine in 5 years or so, the 3D glasses won't be necessary and the technology will have the 3D components embedded into the visuals so the images will come to us normally and we won't have to be dealing with all the current annoyances of 3D.

Ultimately, I still say 3D is one of the best ways to expand the art form and make films to be inherently more visual. It just needs to catch on in more than basic and dumb ways. I'm sure Hollywood will always represent that but more good filmmakers will explore 3D and they find will good ways to stretch out the format.

Isn't it impossible to see 3D without the glassses? Won't it always be impossible unless we get new eye balls?

Quote from: Stefen on April 23, 2010, 04:01:52 PM
Isn't it impossible to see 3D without the glassses? Won't it always be impossible unless we get new eye balls?

They can actually do glasses-less 3D, but it really only works on small screens with one person looking at them.  Essentially, the screen aims the two images at each individual eye to create the 3D effect, which means that it has to be at a very specific angle to the viewer for it to look right, which pretty much rules out the possibility of it being applicable to theater screens or even TVs.  Nintendo's upcoming version of the DS is going to be like that, and it's going to be showing up on a lot of smartphones in the near future.

Quote from: Stefen on April 23, 2010, 04:01:52 PM
Isn't it impossible to see 3D without the glassses? Won't it always be impossible unless we get new eye balls?

No, it's just how the technology has to be for now. James Cameron says the next step for 3D is that it will be so normalized it will be how things are just projected to us visually, from films to TV. It's like taking steps to seeing things the way they do in Minority Report where visuals are leaping out everywhere. Of course, it won't get that nuanced right away, but it will be everywhere in the same fashion. Even though the movie is overrated, Spielberg did well in basing everything on things that were actually possible within the next hundred years. It's rare since a lot of times science fiction movies are more fantasy.

3D is just the studios' way of diverting you from noticing their poor scripts.

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I'm turning gay because of Seth. :shock: Can't wait.

Wow. The trailer makes this look as bad as...well, in terms of comparable comic book movies based on little known characters, as bad as Jonah Hex. Or maybe worse.

Trailer here (http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/06/21/movie-trailer-the-green-hornet/), by the way.

And yeah, I wasn't prepared for how generic this movie looks.  Except for a couple little visual flourishes, I really don't see Gondry in this at all.

no offence if he's like the robert deniro of asia or whatever, but the dude playing kato sounds like he's gonna give the WORST performance of the year. even by comic book film standards.. poooooooooeey!

he talks like dixon. he delivers his lines like he's reading them off cue cards spelled phonetically. like he's never said an english word in his life and he's just reading the sounds. i'm not even saying it's his fault, gondry showed with be kind rewind that he's absolutely useless when it comes to noticing his actors are stinking up the joint. he couldn't tell that movie was a right old piece of embarrassing shit? so when an actor is barely doing anything more than reading out dialogue like a robot (which thank god he didn't write this time) it's hardly a surprise that he has NO idea something is awry.

poor gondry. leave your ears at the door and this movie might be alrite. that's if you don't mind if he recycles all his music video tricks again.. and judging by the shot where the dude kicks some bad guy across a car and you see a visual trail of the car under him, he's not against doing that. (refer to his video for the chemical bros' Let Forever Be)

I'm going to assume that trailer is just the studio going nuts trying to make it SEEM like Pineapple Express meets Iron Man.  It's so bad.

I would be just fine with a bigger (for Gondry) budget hero movie that uses all of Gondry's old tricks.  Seeing them used in that way would be fun... I just hope it's not all this boring matrix shit the trailer seems to show.

Where's that trick he was talkin' about.

Quote from: RegularKarate on June 22, 2010, 10:38:07 AM
Where's that trick he was talkin' about.

for reference (since i think most ppl didn't read that interview) RK is talkin bout this tidbit from the Thorn in the Heart thread:

Quote from: P on May 06, 2010, 06:28:16 PM

Quote from: MacGuffin on May 06, 2010, 11:23:43 AM
Q: What do you feel 3D offers you as a filmmaker?
Gondry: ... There's one thing that has never been done and I can't wait to do. That can only be done in 3D. I'm really excited to know that the studio is going for it. ...

damn you gondry! he's so hard to understand sometimes. does he mean that this innovation in 3D is going to be in Green Hornet or that he's excited that studios in general are going for 3D so that he'll hav the chance to use this mysterious amazing original idea at some point in the future?

i won't even begin to guess what this thing is that has never been done on 3D that has only ever occurred to him cos he's such a goddamn genius. which he is!

time to speculate as to what this cool trick that has never been done before could be.

for starters, we can probably cross off "having a genuinely good performance in a 3D movie."

Quote from: P on June 22, 2010, 10:59:33 AM
time to speculate as to what this cool trick that has never been done before could be.

Judging by what we've seen here, my guess would be what you referenced as being leftover's from his better music videos:

Quote from: P on June 22, 2010, 02:51:50 AM
and judging by the shot where the dude kicks some bad guy across a car and you see a visual trail of the car under him, he's not against doing that. (refer to his video for the chemical bros' Let Forever Be)

It may come off as a rehash now, but hopefully once witnessed in theaters and in 3D, these points will come off as, at least, a bit more visually interesting (my guess would be that the idea is to "stretch out space" three dimensionally). *fingers crossed*

but altogether, I'm not terrible excited by this trailer; i'm afraid it's a trend begun by Be Kind, where we're left with very little Gondry, but i hope this is all just misleading and something more promising will come our way.

Officially superhero'd the fuck out.

jay chou is a taiwanese pop superstar who's conquered asia with really bad hiphop.  he can be funny but for the most part he's marketed as a hearthrob.  he's a smart business guy - produces and writes and directs frequently and has a strong little label.  but his stuff just isn't very good or interesting.  he's definitely no stephen chow.

International Trailer here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihErU7qL2zU)

I went to a panel on 3D filmmaking today, which was a condensed version of a workshop that Sony offers to DGA members.  It was very interesting and definitely showed that it's possible to capture a whole different kind of beauty with 3D.  It was quite technical, and the main focus what filmmakers need to keep in mind while making a 3D film.  I don't know if I'd ever like to make a 3D film, but going to this did make me excited to see how good 3D will be 5 years from now, especially as directors start thinking about and experimenting with how to use 3D.

Anyway, they showed a clip from The Green Hornet, and it actually looks pretty awesome.  It was a fight scene (the one where Kato kicks a guy over the car and space stretches), which was creatively choreographed and funny, and the 3D did add to the fun.  The conversion (since it was shot in 2D) was pretty good.  I haven't seen any other movies that were converted from 2D, but it works just fine here.  It's basically added depth without looking like a pop-up book.  It's definitely Gondry having a lot of fun, so I was happy to see it.  I couldn't tell if anything else about it would be good, but we'll definitely be seeing Gondry trying some fun stuff.

New Trailer here. (http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808411967/video/23108213)

I have a sneaking cynical suspicion that the trailer is ten times better than the movie. God help me, I'm turning into such a pessimist about the things I love.

more like The Green Hornet's Sidekick (..can't act).

How Michel Gondry became cinema's most versatile director
From surrealism to documentary, from pop videos to superhero romps, Michel Gondry's career is impossible to pin down. He talks life, death and film-making
Source: The Guradian

Michel Gondry strides into the restaurant, his darting eyes taking in everything around him. You can sense antennae twitching within his jumble of brown-and-grey curls. He turns out to be an expansive, good-humoured talker. If anything, he's almost too aware: his wavelength seems prone to interference from other people's transmissions. "Ugh, they are too loud," he huffs at one point. "This guy is making me lose my concentration," he complains later as another man loiters nearby.

The 47-year-old Frenchman is best known as the director of some of modern cinema's most deliriously loopy fantasies, from the surrealist tearjerker Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to the sticky-back plastic dreamscapes of The Science of Sleep and the slacker slapstick of Be Kind Rewind. But he spreads his talents far without spreading them thin. He has directed groundbreaking commercials and music promos (most famously for Björk and the White Stripes), as well as a recent episode of Flight of the Conchords; he is also a drummer (he played on Kanye West's Diamonds from Sierra Leone), an artist and the founder of a community film-making project. His official website sells rolls of toilet paper with a joke on each sheet. ("Wipe your ass with my bad humour!" runs the ad copy.) And he has published a comic, We Lost the War But Not the Battle, about four draft dodgers, one of whom is dead, who are called up to fight an army of women.

Gondry's versatility is perhaps best illustrated by the two strikingly dissimilar pictures he has on the cusp of release. One is a big-budget superhero romp, The Green Hornet, starring Seth Rogen as a hedonistic heir turned crimefighter. The other is The Thorn in the Heart, an informal documentary about Gondry's family. He says it was born out of his regret at never having captured on film his grandfather, the inventor and musical pioneer Constant Martin. He admits, too, that thoughts of his own mortality played their part. "Soon after my dad passed away, I was driving on a freeway at night, it was totally black, and my son suddenly said, 'Dad, I just realised that once you are dead, you will be dead for ever.' I was thinking about my age yesterday, and I thought: 'This is a disaster. My life is already way past halfway.'"

But the film's actual subject is his elderly aunt Suzette. "She has this capacity for telling stories," he says. "It was a treasure I wanted to preserve." First shown giggling uncontrollably during a family dinner, Suzette is soon revealed to have a flinty, unyielding side. The documentary was only supposed to cover her professional life, but then she invited her son, Gondry's cousin Jean-Yves, to cook for the small film crew. "Immediately we all saw the tension between them," says Gondry. "My director of photography said, 'OK, you want drama? There it is. Let's film that.'"

Gondry unearths long-buried resentments that he maintains could never even have been broached without the camera running. One uncomfortable scene shows Suzette breaking down while discussing her husband's death, with Gondry heard admonishing himself for upsetting her. "Even when I shoot actors, I have that dilemma," he says. "I want the actor to be good, and sometimes I have to push them to a place that isn't pleasant. I always think: 'Is it worth doing for the sake of the movie?' But I have to remember the bigger picture. If the movie sucks, it is even more of a letdown."

Gondry says his fear of death stretches back to childhood. "I was always very worried, as I still am, about losing my consciousness." He was born and raised in Versailles, along with his two brothers (one of whom, Olivier, is also a film-maker). "At school I was very shy. I wasn't funny really, but there was this one funny guy who made jokes about other people. There was a quality of bullying in his humour, a mocking aspect that I instantly disliked." That aversion to cruelty has stayed with him; the worst you could say about his work is that it's whimsical or excessively kooky at times, but it never wants for compassion. "I don't mock things, which makes me more vulnerable to mockery myself. If you're cynical, you're protected from mockery. But I have to be nice. I don't think I have irony. A sense of humour, yes, but not irony."

Gondry says that, as an adolescent, he was always arguing with his father, who branded him a communist because of his dreams of a society toiling together. That youthful idealism found its voice in Be Kind Rewind, which builds from two video-store clerks shooting DIY remakes of popular films to an entire community collaborating on a short film about Fats Waller. It's there, too, in Dave Chappelle's Block Party, a concert movie in which the revellers in the street are given equivalence with the musicians on stage by Gondry's democratic camera.

In his first music promos in the late 1980s and early 1990s, made when he graduated from art school and joined the band Oui Oui, Gondry's sensibility was already taking shape. "At that time, the fashion was to show people for more than who they were. You still see it in a lot of hip-hop. I was always against that. I wanted to show how they were when they met me. I did a video with IAM, a rap band in France, and they were a very warm bunch of guys. But once we started talking about the video, there was this attitude which came from gangsta rap, and I thought it wasn't representing them. I tried to make sure the audience would see what I saw in them."

By the time he made his first two films, Human Nature and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, both with the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, Gondry was extending that humanising process to established stars. Along with the dexterous editing, sustained melancholy and in-camera special effects (a Gondry speciality) in Eternal Sunshine, it's the transformation of Jim Carrey into a vulnerable actor that was a revelation. "I'm attracted to working with comedians because they don't have that stars' idea of what a hero should be," Gondry says. "The downside is they're always addressing the camera too much. I've worked with several now – Jim, Jack Black, Dave Chappelle, Seth Rogen – and my job has been to break that and to get them to forget the camera."

His eyes light up when he mentions Rogen, but the reaction of the fanboys and bloggers to the prospect of The Green Hornet – which the director describes as a "super-antihero movie" – could hardly have been more hostile. During the film's presentation at San Diego's Comic-Con this summer, the Q&A session was almost drowned out by the stampede of walkouts. Gondry sneers quite magnificently at the memory. "I usually identify with the nerds," he points out, "but these ones just reinforce the social rules. Their values are fascistic. All those people marching around in capes and masks and boots. The superhero imagery is totally fascist!" He's on a roll now. "When you step into this genre, they feel it belongs to them. They want you to conform, or they won't like you. They want the conventional. But it's fine. The movie's been doing very well, I think, whenever we've screened it to normal people."

It is perhaps typical that Gondry should be at the helm of a costly, Sony-produced potential blockbuster while at the same time advancing a community film-making project that spun off from Be Kind Rewind. The "Be Kind Rewind Protocol", as he calls it, involves setting up small studios with modest sets and facilities – props, back-projection footage, video cameras – so that groups of people can make their own amateur movies together according to anti-auteurist rules drawn up by Gondry. (Anyone showing up with a ready-made storyboard is sent packing.) He insists there is no contradiction. "I need both. I want to make popular films, but I also want to find a way for people to entertain themselves."

The project was a hit in New York two years ago, where the shorts produced included Rotting Hill and The Big Nap (a kiddie noir); Gondry is hopeful that it will roll out to other cities, with different centres watching one another's films. "Some of the stories were very violent," he giggles. "You could see kids killing their parents. Teachers were coming along with classes on a school trip." He looks genuinely euphoric. "It's not my vision of film. It's my vision of what society could be – people being entertained without being part of the consumerist system."

this review made me crack up. from hollywood-elsewhere...sounds like gondry didn't even injected his own aesthetic style into it that much...

HORNET STRIKES
by Jeffrey Welles

The Green Hornet (Sony, 1.14) is a blend of superhero sludge and a buddy action comedy. Except the action has no juice -- you've seen the same duke-out, shoot-out, car-chase, demolition-derby stuff hundreds of times -- and it's not the least bit funny, largely because it won't stop hitting you with the same old routines. What you get is unimaginative, routinely-staged action. The appalling use of decades-old cliches. Boring and/or tediously-drawn characters. Painful GenX-wanker dialogue that feels half-trite and half-improvised. And not even faint amusement.

It's a co-creation of actor-producer-screenwriter Seth Rogen, co-writer Evan Goldberg, director Michel Gondry, and everyone else who tried to make this into a film, going back to the '90s.

This is one of those big movies that make you feel as if you're being poisoned. You sit in your seat feeling like Alexander Litvinenko succumbing to radioactive polonium-210. This is what corporate entertainment has become in the 21st Century -- a kind of death-trip experience. Most of the time you sit and think about "the end" and what that'll be like, and the rest of the time you sit up and pay attention to the dialogue in order to follow the plot.

What a shock that Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Human Nature, The Science of Sleep), a signature director with a recognizable aesthetic, decided to whore out with this thing.

The irony, of course, is that The Green Hornet is as old as fish fossils. The basic bones -- irresponsible newspaper heir Britt Reid (Rogen) and trusted chauffeur Kato (Jay Chou) becoming an urban crime-fighting team -- were originally created for a 1930s radio serial. So it's the last classic superhero tale to reach the big screen, it took forever to get made, and it's basically a big 3D shit sandwich.

Some of the geek critics are calling it "one of the better superhero flicks of recent years," "sly, silly, thrilling," and "a surprisingly funny and ingeniously clever take," etc. If you want to believe that, go right ahead.

I went into this thing believing that Rogen is a cool actor-writer with good humor instincts, and I came out of it wondering what's happened to the poor guy, and how could he have been part of something like this? I know that poor Christoph Waltz, last year's Best Supporting Actor winner for Inglourious Basterds, has diminished his rep by playing a drug-dealing bad guy in the usual "My God, I'm so evil I can't help but joke about it" deadpan-shrug sort of way. (Why does the winning of Oscars always seem to lead to stupid paycheck roles, and the eventual ruining of careers when the actor/actress accepts too many of them?) I don't know why Cameron Diaz is in this thing, but she is, playing a peripheral sex-tease character.

One of the reasons The Green Hornet cost $130 million is that "the production modified 29 Chrysler Imperials from model years 1964 to 1966 to portray the Green Hornet's luxurious supercar, the Black Beauty," according to a May 2010 N.Y. Times story. They couldn't have made do with ten?

Chou's Kato is an unquestionably cooler dude than Rogen's Reid. Even in his stoner modes Rogen has always played reasonably bright fellows, but he seems borderline retarded in this outing. Reid has trouble thinking or saying anything above the level of "this coffee sucks." On top of which he's a spoiled, immature blowhard. He's genuinely annoying. But Chou is cool and contained and the brains of the partnership. I liked him, and didn't care for big-mouth Rogen dismissing or putting him down. I muttered, "You should take orders from Kato, bitch!"

I mentioned yesterday that I cooked up a metaphor in my theatre seat about Chou representing the more dynamic and forward-moving Asian economies of 2010 and Rogen representing the smug, flatulent and coasting-on-past-glories U.S. economy.

've said time and again that outside of the Chris Nolan realm, the comic-book superhero genre is a plague and a pox upon our cinematic house. And I've explained the reasons until blue in the face. It's gone way beyond the milking-to-death of the empowerment-through-transformation fantasy (lonely, morose compromised guy finds potency through costumed crime-fighting alter-ego). You might as well call the constant re-packaging and re-selling of this sad little dream by corporate-funded movie studios a malevolent Orwellian scheme. You have no power, suckers, and we want it kept that way so here's some more heroin to distract you from the facts.

To me there's nothing sadder than the eagerness of the ComicCon culture to pay to see the same thing (okay, with slight variations in terms of identities, costumes, villains, CG and the usual crash-boom-bang) in film after film, year after year. They have no shame, and there's no talking to them about this. Their comic-book and gamer appetites, instilled during their late '60s, '70s and '80s childhoods, are like serum in their souls. To me the relentlessness of superhero films has become a kind of mass poison.

In his review of this Michel Gondry film, Hitfix's Drew McWeeny writes that it "seems like filmgoers don't mind [the oppressive sameness] because they continually go see [these] films without major complaint." Exactly. This is why I've floated the idea of F14 Tomcats strafing the ComicCon faithful outside the San Diego Convention Center. They have their fantasies; I have mine.

That's a pretty bothersome review. Not for it's content, I'm not familiar with hollywood-elsewhere or the writings of Jeffery Welles. At best, it's as indistinguishably generic as most movie reviews found on blogs - where the writer thinks he's smarter than he actually is.

What's irritating is it's intent. The writer not only seems like it was predisposed to hate the film, but seems to find enjoyment in of proclaiming his disappointment.

It also seems pretty selfish and close-minded of Welles to call GOndry's aesthetic into question. A if he know what a Gondry film should look/feel like more than the director himself.

Yeah, fuck this guy. I rarely have the knee jerk simplistic response of "if you think it's so bad, shut the fuck up and make a movie yourself" but that's my immediate response to this asshole.

It does make me a lot more inclined to see The Green Hornet, however.

Nevermind, I guess the reviews content bothers me just as much as everything else.

Reelist: i posted a review from someone else. is nothing strange around here. is also nothing strange around here to trash movies on end without seeing them and then never post a reaction after seeing the film.

I found the review funny. Not condescending at all, more like pissed off about seeing a bad movie, which we can all relate to, and that's why I find it funny. You guys wouldn't be so defensive if this was a review of spider man 4, but since is Michel Gondry, well...we all want to give him the benefit of the doubt. "Big 3d shit sandwich" is pretty funny, it doesn't matter if it refers to The Green Hornet or not.

I also think most of what he says about comic book movies and culture to be true. is the same thing over and over, it's been going on for a decade now (more, if you count some of the 90's films) and not one director is imprinting any kind of personal creative signature on them anymore (Nolan excepted) like tim Burton did with batman. Sam Raimi did ok with the first 2 spiderman movies but we all know how that ended up.

I have seen the trailer and it looks really bad, in fact it looks just like this guy is describing it. The elements by themselves are attractive but it wouldn't be strange at all if this didn't work, after being in development hell for decades. Also, that shit about the 29 cars pretty much sums up what is wrong with big hollywood studio films these days. But I will see it if the reviews get better than that or the fine people at xixax like it because it's a good movie and not because it's a michel gondry movie. I like gondry, but science of sleep and be kind rewind sucked. his documentary on his aunt was a mild improvement. but let's wait...

you know what I liked about the review was that the guy said "signature director" instead of incorrectly dropping in the word "auteur".  other critics, take note.

Cheer Up Michel Gondry Fans, 'The Green Hornet' May Be Seth Rogen's Fault
Gondry Didn't Have Final Cut, Or Full Authority, But Says He "Accepted" This Early On
Source: ThePlaylist

"The Green Hornet" may have topped the box office this weekend, bringing in a respectable $34 million but its critical reception was mixed at best.  Personally, this writer thought the film had some good laughs but really stumbled when going through the motions of yet another superhero origin story. More importantly, it was a far cry from director Michel Gondry's best work ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", his music videos) and seemed like more of a compromise than a collaboration with star/co-writer/producer Seth Rogen. Well, according to an article in the LA Times that was exactly the case.

Apparently Gondry did not have final cut and butted heads with Rogen on the direction of the film. He also admitted, perhaps much to the dismay of fanboys claiming it clearly bore his visual imprint, that it was not his movie. While the French filmmaker doesn't go as far to say it was a work for hire gig, he does note that he wasn't on the top of the set hierarchy this time. "Seth was as important, if not more important than the studio," he said. "So I felt, 'well, it's not really my movie.' I accepted that. But I realized there was still tons I could infiltrate or infuse my personality through discussion all the time."  That's pretty disappointing to hear, considering how excited both star and director seemed to be at the beginning of this project. 

Producer Neal Moritz said he and Rogen superseded Gondry's authority too, noting, "Coolio's 'Gangsta's Paradise,' Michel didn't want that – but myself and Seth really wanted it," he said. Gondry went on to add that although he "hated" some of the jokes when he shot them, he came around to them in the film later on.

Rogen does take full responsibility for one of the film's most head-scratching moments: it's that same aforementioned musical setpiece. Rogen recalled, "I remember when we were shooting it, [Gondry] was sitting there with his arms crossed and a grumpy look on his face but there wasn't a second when we thought we might be wrong. We were like, 'You are going to feel so stupid when you see that this is the funniest [freaking] thing in the entire world." Gondry may not have agreed but he was a good sport about it.  He said of the song, "It's not really me at all. But when I saw it, I really liked it." As fans of both Gondry and Rogen, we're glad to see the two ended up working everything out but would be surprised to see any future collaborations and/or Gondry ceding control to anyone else anytime soon.

"The Green Hornet" is in theaters now.

from my blog: (http://modage.tumblr.com/post/2806107946/the-green-hornet-review)

The bad buzz and January release should have been indicators but with Michel Gondry behind the camera and a script by Superbad/Pineapple Express team, Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg, I just didn't want to believe it.  It's not as bad as it could have been but it is a far cry from the best work of both director Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and writer Rogen (Superbad).  The film actually does have some good laughs in it as well as a few gonzo Gondry sequences but it definitely feels like you've seen it all before.  The film opens with a good cameo (which I wont spoil) but kinda made me with that the entire film had been filled out with Freaks & Geeks alumni.  Surprisingly the film instead tries to play it more-or-less straight with Rogen seemingly dropped into an otherwise by-the-numbers superhero film.

We've seen the superhero origin story so many times by now I kept wishing they would do something new with it.  Rogen already played the "I can't believe Seth Rogen is in an action movie" card in Pineapple Express, so there isn't much new ground broken there.  The film reminded me of that run of 2nd rate superhero films released after the huge success of Tim Burton's Batman films.  Because Marvel still hadn't figured out how to translate their character to the big screen, studios unearthed various pulp characters like Dick Tracy, The Phantom, The Shadow to try to create another blockbuster.  In the non-Rogen scenes, the film seems to fit right in with those forgotten experiments.

anyone who see's this in theaters deserves their money back, it's a waste of glasses. It was very moderately funny, I feel like Chou stole the show. Seth Rogen is a funny guy, but I feel like he's not even an actor anymore. Just some dork who walked onto a movie set. With that said, it's not half as bad as people have been making it out to be. They're just mad that they walked out of the theater with a headache, after going in all pumped up to see some cool Gondry visuals and getting nilch.

SPOIL!

I just feel like it could've been a lot more creative. In the first seen when Christoph pulls out the double-gun, I was like "whoa, not bad. Double gun" Then it turns out for the entire movie the only weapon he uses is this corny ass double-gun. WTF?