What’s the buzz on “The Green Hornet”? Enough to make
masked crime fighter, a cool car and a high-kicking sidekick saw fans
stampeding out of the movie’s Q&A panel at
“Their values are Fascistic,” he seethed to the
British newspaper The Guardian. “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.”
“Normal people” will have a chance to judge for
themselves Friday, when this unconventional slacker-dude take on the
character opens in theaters. Star and co-writer
1930s radio to a fondly remembered, 1960s TV series starring
Lee a household name, introduced the catchphrase “Let’s roll, Kato!”
and gave us one of television’s most bravura instrumental themes —
trumpeter
The series was also memorable for the gadget-packed Black Beauty, a customized 1966 Chrysler Imperial that outdid
swiveled in and out of sight, night-vision headlights, an exhaust
device that spread ice over roads, rear-wheel brushes to sweep away
tire tracks and lots more. The new movie used 29 1964-66 Imperials for
all the various shots and stunts in an effort to re-create that
coolness.
And coolness is key, given the sleek and finely
tailored, serious and steely-eyed Green Hornet, who, in his topcoat and
fedora, was the Don Draper of crime fighters. “He was very stylish,”
remembers
20-year-old genre-fiction magazine Video Watchdog and a lecturer on
popular culture. “He had the Hornet’s Sting” — a science-fiction-y
sound wave gun — “and that fabulous car, which, to me is even more
beautiful than the Batmobile.”
The new film’s gadgets, stunts and action may well
compensate for all the pre-release qualms fans have felt over doughy
comic actor Rogen in the title role. Rogen, perhaps wisely in that
context, is keeping a relatively low profile in terms of promoting the
picture, declining to speak to Newsday, even though he is also one of
the film’s executive producers. Likewise not speaking are
co-screenwriter
“Executives at
It was the sixth time the movie was moved — it was
originally slated for summer 2009 — and the latest setback in a long
slog to bring it to the screen. The original conception in 1993, when
Clooney left in 1995, the movie’s current director, Gondry (“Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”), was hired and spent a year and a half
working on a script with “RoboCop” co-writer
Action star Jet Li breathed new life into the picture when he signed on as Kato in 2000. Oscar-winning screenwriter
did not get greenlit, and Universal cut its losses in 2001.
Finally, producer
bowed out as the latter over creative differences, replaced by Gondry
in early 2009. Chow later abandoned the Kato role, which was taken over
by heavily accented Asian singer-actor
Consistent through all this has been Rogen’s vision
of the Green Hornet. “He’s just, like, a rich, bored dude,” the
“Pineapple Express” star said in 2007, “who has decided to become a
superhero. … He’s a billionaire and he’s a playboy, but he’s really,
like, a normal guy who really has no real reason to be the Green
Hornet, other than he really wants to be a superhero, which I really
relate to.”
Whether “normal people” will as well, we’ll see. Let’s roll, Kato.
———
A GREEN HORNET TIMELINE
Comics” No. 1-6 (cover dates Dec. 1940-Aug. 1941) becomes the first of
several comic book series, including Harvey’s “Green Hornet Comics”
(1942-47), Gold Key’s “The Green Hornet” (1967), Now Comics’ “The Green
Hornet” and several spinoffs (1990-1993) and Dynamite Entertainment’s
“Green Hornet” and spinoffs (2010).
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(c) 2011, Newsday.
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