The Green Hornet history is as convoluted as the plots of the radio drama that spawned this masked vigilante.
Adapted into a TV show, two movie serials and reams of comic books, the property is now a 3-D feature that opens worldwide this month after spending nearly two decades in development, courting controversy with its casting and ending with a steep price tag of $130 million.
“It’s been tumultuous,” said Seth Rogen, star and co-writer.
Mr. Rogen, 28, became Hollywood’s comedian du jour with the hits “Knocked Up” and “Pineapple Express.” This time around he’s Britt Reid, a party-loving rich young man who has never forgiven his father for ripping the head off his favorite childhood action figure. When the old man dies, Britt inherits his newspaper empire and his mechanic, Kato, a gizmo-mad martial artist who makes perfect lattes.
Britt enlists Kato as his partner. They prowl the streets of Los Angeles at night in Britt’s car the Black Beauty, a mid-1960s Chrysler Imperial that Kato has fitted with flip-down turntables, rocket pods and 50-caliber machine guns.
Their friendship, however, bears little resemblance to the one conceived in 1936 by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker. Back then Kato was mostly silent.
Four years into the run Universal released a 13-episode “Green Hornet” movie serial. Kato originally was Japanese. With anti-Japan sentiment mounting, the radio Kato turned Filipino. In the film he was Korean. The actor who portrayed him was Chinese.
A sequel came out in 1941. In 1966 “The Green Hornet” turned TV novelty, with the great Bruce Lee as Kato, his kung fu prowess eclipsing his boss. But this “Hornet” lasted only a season.
Hollywood didn’t kick the Hornet’s nest again until 1992. Eddie Murphy was the first actor to lobby openly for the part; George Clooney, the first to accept it. Mr. Clooney dropped out to star in “The Peacemaker.”
“The Green Hornet” languished in development until 1997, when the French music video wizard Michel Gondry was hired for what was to be his feature film directorial debut. Mr. Gondry reimagined the story as a futuristic fantasy. “Our villain ate human hearts,” Mr. Gondry recalled.
Their villain met his end after swallowing a pacemaker. “The Green Hornet killed him with a microwave oven,” said Mr. Gondry. “The studio said it had ‘creative differences’ with us.”
In 2004 Kevin Smith (“Clerks”) signed up to write and direct. His script, featuring a female Kato, was also shelved. Mr. Rogen and his frequent writing collaborator Evan Goldberg hopped aboard the “Green Hornet” carousel in 2007. The Hong Kong filmmaker Stephen Chow was recruited, but he too had creative differences.
Mr. Chow was supplanted by Mr. Gondry, by then an established movie director (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”). The studio admired Mr. Gondry’s concept of “Kato- vision”: fight sequences in which combatants moved at different speeds within the frame. But the director was unable to work with Nicolas Cage, the film’s original villain, who insisted on using a Jamaican accent.
Mr. Cage was replaced by Christoph Waltz, the SS colonel in “Inglourious Basterds.” Kato too was endlessly vamped and revamped. “We wrote him old and young and everything in between,” Mr. Rogen said. “About the only Kato we skipped was Kato Kaelin.”
The casting of the Taiwanese pop singer Jay Chou prompted more unease. The studio was accused of bypassing Asian-American actors in a brazen attempt to capture overseas markets. The producer, Neal H. Moritz, was concerned about Mr. Chou’s lack of fluency in English (he later concluded that his linguistic struggles made his Kato endearing).
Will Hornet fans resist Seth Rogen, Superhero? “It’s a travesty to depict the Hornet as an affable goon,” said the cartoonist Michael Dudczak.
Mr. Rogen is unfazed. “I used to worry that movie audiences would resist me as an actor altogether,” he said. “So this is nothing new.”
By FRANZ LIDZ
