Question marks in the headline can mean only one thing: it’s time to prognosticate!  This story may not be true, so we’re free to speculate wildly!  Yee haw!  Now who wants to get shot in the dark?

*roller skates up to curb, turns off flashing lights on Speedo*
Rumor patrol here, folks.  Today’s possibly true news from an unnamed source comes from IESB, who say Sony execs are not pleased with the Seth Rogen-scripted, Michel Gondry-directed comedic take on The Green Hornet.

What we’re hearing is the Sony executives are displeased with the results. The tone is too campy [A campy Green Hornet movie?  The dastard!], they’re not happy with the work from director Michel Gondry and Seth Rogen does not look the part. At all. In fact, the feeling at Sony is the movie is a disaster.

Wait, Seth Rogen doesn’t look the part of a super hero?  If only they somehow could’ve  seen this coming…  Look, I know Michel Gondry’s movies since Eternal Sunshine haven’t been amazing, but the man painted me a tranny with a bottle in its butt for $20.  Where I’m from, that counts for something.  And keep in mind, these Sony execs who supposedly think the Green Hornet film is a disaster, they’re presumably the same people who thought Bounty Hunter and Did You Hear About the Morgans? looked like feel-good thrill rides.

Splash News today gives us our first look at The Green Hornet, Seth Rogen’s comedic take on the old time superhero being directed by Michel Gondry, who once drew me a tranny.  No word on why the crew member in the picture is wearing a surgical mask, but Rogen has that unmistakable “I just farted” smirk on his face.  But he’s Canadian. I hear that sort of thing is encouraged over there.  It keeps the moose from eating the crops. Denim crops.

(see the explosion-y video from the set, after the jump) Read the rest of this entry »

We were all pretty disappointed when Nic Cage dropped out of Seth Rogen and Michel Gondry’s The Green Hornet last week when he and Sony couldn’t come to a deal.  But now that Christoph Waltz has taken his place, everyone’s pretty happy.  See?  Everything happens for a reason.  Ha, just kidding.  Next time someone tells you that, take a dump in their fishtank, then see what they say.

I’m told that ICM’s actor Christoph Waltz who won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for playing a Nazi in Inglourious Basterds (and is a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination) has now been cast as villain Chudnofsky in Sony’s The Green Hornet opposite Seth Rogen and Cameron Diaz. Since Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds came out — and crossed the $100M mark this weekend – Waltz has been offered a lot of big movies by a lot of big directors. And he’s getting big bucks now. How great he’s found success at age 52. [DeadlineHollywoodDaily]

‘Chudnofsky’, of course, was Darren Aronofsky’s nickname at clown college.  Anyway, Waltz definitely adds some acting chops to the picture, though the whattafuh? factor (which is especially important when you’ve already got Seth Rogen playing the Green Hornet) would’ve been higher with Cage.  But from what I hear, Waltz isn’t the only one bringing home the big bucks these days.  Why, just this weekend, Gary Busey headbutted two of them to death.  Later it turned out one of them was just Nic Cage dressed as a bear, but Busey said it still counts.

[picture source = geektyrant]

Okay, so technically Nic Cage is only in “early talks” to play the bad guy, but in the school of punctuation, exclamation point steals question mark’s lunch money (“Why?”  “Because!”).  Variety says Cage would play a “gangster villain” (possible name: The Forehead) in the Seth Rogen/Evan Goldberg-scripted comedic remake of the Green Hornet. Rogen is set to play the lead with Michel Gondry directing.  Cameron Diaz reportedly wants to play the love interest (though she’s 10 years older than Rogen *cougar snarl*). And they’ve been looking for a new Kato since Stephen Chow dropped out a few months ago.

Between this and his lucky-crackpipe turn in the Bad Lieutenant remake, it’s nice to see Nic Cage finally making some good career moves.  Keep in mind, this is the guy who punched a chick while wearing a bear suit, and that was in a movie where he was the hero.  As a villain, I’ll be disappointed with anything less than him rapechoking a schoolgirl while wearing the lizard tail from Fear and Loathing.  Not enough rapechokes played for comedic effect these days, I always say.

Read the rest of this entry »

_{This picture’s better without context, I feel.}

Last we heard about Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s plan for a comedic take on the Green Hornet, Stephen Chow (the Kung Fu Hustle guy) had dropped out as director and the project seemed like it was on its way to development hell.  Late yesterday, the big news was that Eternal Sunshine (one of my all-time favorites) director Michel Gondry was coming onboard (additional hipster coffee shop conversation piece: Gondry directed the first fifth episode of this season’s Flight of the Conchords).

“This story has always been close to me and now Seth and Evan have written a script that is both funny and real — the best of both worlds. I cannot wait to further collaborate with them on it.”  Gondry said. The film will begin shooting this summer and is set for release June 25, 2010. [DHD]

Is this going to be an f-d up movie?  Probably.  But that’s good.  The last thing I want to see is another half-assed superhero movie where the hero discovers his power in act one, has a showdown with his evil doppleganger in act three, and spends most of the time in between whining about his one-dimensional love interest.  Where are the gangbangs?  Where are the tiger fights?  These Hollywood fags have no vision.