As expected, almost right after reports were swirling that The Green Hornet was in big trouble, writer/star Seth Rogen has chimed in with where he thinks the project is.
The movie’s issues began when Stephen Chow was announced as being attached to direct and to star as Kato, but then decided he probably wouldn’t direct anymore. As that went on, rumors started to arise that the project was in trouble and that many people close to the project were saying that it was either dead or very unlikely to happen any time soon.
Drew McWeeny from HitFix was the main source who heard these far-from-promising rumors (see The Possible Sad, Sudden Death Of ‘The Green Hornet’), and so it was fitting that Seth Rogen took the time to e-mail him directly and set things straight.
Rogen explains:
‘The Green Hornet’ has many people working for it, including production designers, costume designers and many conceptual artists, office staff, etc. [The studio heads] have every intention on making it, and assuming we’re able to hire a new director in the upcoming weeks, which seems like a distinct possibility, it should still hit the release date.
In another interesting bit of news, the is reporting that they’ve heard from two studio sources that a one Adam Sandler has a “brief but key role in the movie as a certain surprise superhero…” in The Green Hornet. No word yet as to who this might be, but the world of the Hornet is a tad obscure, so no need to go speculating away. Sandler and Rogen are currently appearing together in Judd Apatow’s Funny People.
As far as I’m concerned, this project is in a kind of purgatory right now and it’s tough to tell what’s for real. If Rogen is saying this, then I have to lean toward it still being pretty healthy, but we’ll just have to wait and see if anything happens soon to really confirm it left or right.
Sandler’ll probably be the Lone Ranger if he’s a “surprise superhero.” The only real vigilante hero in the mythology other the Hornet is the Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet’s great grandfather.
That would be cool. Kind of sacrilegious, but in an interesting way (it’s pretty clear with Rogen as the Hornet that they’ll be reinterpreting the whole mythos and probably add a dash of comedy too)