Director Michel Gondry (2nd L), actor and producer Seth Rogen (C) and actor Jay Chou (2nd R) pound rice cake during the Japan Premiere of 'The Green Hornet.' (Photo : Getty Images/Kiyoshi Ota / Stringer)
"The Green Hornet" is getting another reboot, with director Gavin O'Connor helming the film. With Paramount Pictures and Chernin Entertainment having acquired the rights to the film, O'Connor is set to overhaul the image of Britt Reid into an edgy hero that could open the possibility of a "The Green Hornet" franchise.
"The Green Hornet," which was originally a '60s TV series that starred Van Williams in the leading, was first revived in 2011. Michel Gondry's film starred Seth Rogen, Jay Chou and Cameron Diaz.
According to IGN, Gondry and Rogen's "The Green Hornet" was very costly to produce, thus, the movie never got a sequel. Moreover, the 2011 "The Green Hornet" did not do so well in terms of reviews, having scored only 43 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and a 5.8 out of 10 rating on IMDb.
O'Connor, together with Paramount and Chernin, are starting with a clean slate and a more storied do-over, just like Christopher Nolan's work on the "Dark Knight" movies and J.J. Abrams' work on "Star Trek" and "Star Wars." O'Connor is working with Sean O'Keefe, who'll write the script.
The director himself is a self-confessed fan of "The Green Hornet," whom he described as the "baddest badass" because he had no superpowers as opposed to most heroes depicted in films.
"For almost 20 years now I've been tracking the rights, watching from the sidelines as they were optioned by one studio or another," Deadline quoted O'Connor as saying "When I discovered the rights were available again, I tracked them down, partnered with Peter Chernin and we set the movie up at Paramount."
O'Connor is excited to bring The Green Hornet into the 21st century and modernizing the character to make it more relevant and accessible to the new generation.
To tease about how he's going to bring back Britt Reid to the big screen, the character will have "lost faith in the system" by the time viewers see him again. He's going to be at a war with himself, a war which is connected to the absence of his father.
Casting for the upcoming "The Green Hornet" film has yet to be unveiled.
