More pics at the link. [Superhero Hype]

Jay Chou, the Taiwanese singer and actor and star of Initial D, The Curse of the Golden Flower and Kung Fu Dunk, has been chosen to replace Stephen Chow as martial artist Kato, chauffeur and ass-saver of Rogen's inept superhero Green Hornet. Michel Gondry, who took over from Chow as director, is excited about the choice:

Jay is incredibly unique and charming and fights like a wild dog!

Whether ot not wild dog fighting is necessary for the movie itself remains to be seen.

The Green Hornet is currently in pre-production and targeted for release next summer.

'Green Hornet' casts Kato role [Variety]

Updated: Hollywood Snitch talked to Edward James Olmos at Wizard World in Chicago, and the Battlestar Galactica actor revealed his involvement with the film:

"I'm on my way to do 'The Green Hornet,'" Olmos told me. "It'll be a lot of fun with Seth [Rogen], Nicolas Cage and Cameron Diaz."

So what Hornet role has snagged Bill Adama's attention? There's no word yet, but /Film speculates Olmos may have signed on to play Gunnigan the Daily Sentinel editor with a hair-trigger temper and a special loathing for Sentinel reporter and Green Hornet nemesis Mike Axford.

[Hollywood Snitch via /Film]

Asian news outlets are reporting that Korean actor Kwon Sang-woo is currently in talks to play the Green Hornet's hyper-competent sidekick, alongside a bumbling Seth Rogen. Kwon is known largely as a heartthrob in Korea, having starred in many a romantic soap opera, but he's also has a modest bit of on-screen martial arts experience, thanks to roles in the fantastical Volcano High and gangster-themed Once Upon a Time in High School.

Several outlets have noted Kwon's imperfect English might be the major obstacle to his being cast, but even if he manages to break the language barrier, his action resume doesn't begin to approach Chow's, and it's going to be tough for him to live up to the expectations everyone had for Chow's performance in the role.

[Twitch]

Variety reports that Cage is in talks to play a "gangster villain" in Gondry's film adaptation of The Green Hornet, starring funnyman Seth Rogen as a bumbling superhero. Presumably, this is the same villain Gondry described in earlier interviews: a "horrible" fellow with a double-cannon gun that lets him "shoot people in both eyes with one shot."

Cage's previous foray into comic-book films (the ill-conceived Ghost Rider) was anything but a success, and it is possible that, with Stephen Chow's departure from the role of popular sidekick Kato, the studio is looking to bring bigger names to the project (like Cameron Diaz, rumored to be playing the film's love interest). But I suspect that we're actually getting a glimpse of Gondry's Green Hornet master plan.

The central theme of this version of The Green Hornet is that the eponymous hero is severely outclassed by his more competent – and popular – sidekick, and Gondry might well be expanding that idea of mismatched characters across the entire cast. If Cage's particular brand of strange intensity seems at odds with Rogen's earnest persona, that's probably the point. Gondry may well be deliberately casting actors who normally wouldn't share screen time to create his won unique flavor of superhero stew.

It does seem a risky balancing act for Gondry, one made even more complicated by the difficult job of recasting Kato. But I, for one, am looking forward to watching him try to pull it off.

[Variety]

Rogen has been writing the script with Evan Goldberg (Superbad). The movie is based on the radio serial and the later Green Hornet TV series and will have Hornet's Asain manservant Kato. But even Rogen's jokes about getting Kato to say cocksucker fall flat on my ears.

I think perhaps even Rogen may know that this movie is really just an excuse for him and his buddies to get high and run around in superhero outfits:

"To us, it was just this funny notion that, when you say Green Hornet to someone, the first thing they say is, 'Hey, Bruce Lee played Kato in that show.' We really wanted to make this hero-sidekick movie. ... For years we'd really been trying to write a movie that was kind of about a hero and his sidekick. When we heard the Green Hornet movie was up for grabs, we thought that could be the perfect way to do this story, because he is the only hero whose sidekick is more known than he is. We thought it would be a good way to tell this relationship story and just do a big crazy action movie."

Sorry Seth, the Green Hornet is a terrible superhero — who wants to watch a movie about a better than average crime-fighter or poor man's Bruce Wayne? Didn't we learn our lesson from Mystery Men? Do we really need/want another bumbling Hancock? Pick something else to parody or keep making moves about weed. That seems to be working. Leave the fat superhero jokes to comedy hacks. I fear this could be the beginning of the end for Rogen.

[Sci-Fi]

• The Green Hornet appeared on the radio back in 1936, pre-dating the first appearance of Batman by only three years. However, both men wear masks, have cars that do neat tricks, and feature sidekicks who save their bacon on more than one occasion.
• Britt Reid, newspaper magnate by day, masked crimefighter by night, is The Green Hornet. He's a distant relative of The Lone Ranger (no, we aren't making this up) who travels around in a car he calls "Black Beauty." Hi-yo.
• The Green Hornet is a wanted criminal in the city, and he uses that notoriety as leverage when dealing with criminals.
• The only people who know the Hornet's identity are his secretary Lenore Case and the district attorney, Frank Scanlon.
• The Green Hornet's sidekick and chauffeur Kato was changed from Japanese, to Filipino, to Korean during the run of the show, although he was famously played by Bruce Lee when the series came to television.
• While he may not have worn a utility belt, The Green Hornet did use two specialized guns. One fired knockout gas, and the other one delivered "Hornet Stings" in the form of electric shocks.
• His car featured drop-down tubes that could fire rockets, had a knockout gas nozzle, could launch a flying surveillance device from its trunk, and even featured "infra-green" headlights that could let the driver see in the dark.
• On the radio, the Green Hornet's theme song was "The Flight of the Bumblebee," complete with a theremin providing the sound of a buzzing hornet.
• When The Green Hornet came to television in 1966, it was on the heels of the success of Batman, and both programs aired on ABC. Although Batman was played up to be campy, The Green Hornet was played straight. Both series featured the same announcer, were made by the same production company, and wouldn't you know it... Batman met The Green Hornet on his show.

Sadly, The Green Hornet never had the sticking power that Batman did, probably because a newspaper publisher who punches people just isn't all that exciting. Batman had scads of nifty gadgets and a Batcave, but all The Green Hornet has is a couple of funky guns and a car that looks... like a car. As a radio serial, The Green Hornet worked best in your imagination, just like The Shadow did. When Alec Baldwin brought that character to the screen in 1994, it tanked pretty hard. Billy Zane's 1930's comic-strip movie adaptation The Phantom did even worse in 1996.

So maybe instead of trying to make film adaptations of popular radio dramas and comic strips from the 1930's, Hollywood should create something new and cool. As much as we love our imagination, there is just no way we can picture Seth Rogen as a pugilistic publisher with a secret identity.