Stephen Chow Bows out of Directing ‘Green Hornet’
Stephen Chow gave new life to The Green Hornet film when he signed on in September to both direct the feature adaptation and star opposite Seth Rogan as Kato. Chow will remain as the martial arts sidekick but will no longer direct according to Variety. The usual “creative differences” was cited with producer Neal Moritz assuring all that a new helmer will be signed quickly so shooting can still being in Spring.
Chow was working with a script written by Rogen and Evan Goldberg and the screenplay is said to remain but go through a polish whenever a new director is chosen.
Rogen will play Britt Reid, newspaper heir and secret crime fighter, as conceived by Fran Stryker in the 1930s. Most people today know the character from the one-season ABC series from the 1960s which propelled Bruce Lee to stardom.
Pairing the comedic Rogen with Chow (Kung Fu Hustle) seemed like movie magic and the June 25, 2010 release will no doubt be eagerly anticipated.
Ugh! Just when I thought this might be a good movie! Now, pulling Chow from the director's chair was a dumb idea.
I am not entirely comfortable with Green Hornet being a comedy myself. I would rather see the movie done as a straight, serious adaptation with maybe Ben Affleck as Britt Reid and Jet Li as Kato. Movies based on comics , and comics in general, have only recently started to gain some mainstream respectability, and I would hate to see all that derailed by some idiotic parody that takes us back to the "NA-NA-NA-NA" days of the 60s Batman TV series. Joel Schumacher screwed things up badly enough with his last two Batman movies, thank you.