The Green Hornet (2011 film)
Encyclopedia
The Green Hornet is a 2011 American superhero
action-comedy film based on the character of the same name
that had originated in a 1930s radio program
and has appeared in movie serials, a television series
, comic books, and other media. Directed by Michel Gondry
, the film stars Seth Rogen
, Jay Chou
, Christoph Waltz
and Cameron Diaz
.
The film was released in North America
on January 14, 2011, in versions including RealD Cinema and IMAX 3D.
) is the irresponsible, 28-year-old slacker son of widower James Reid (Tom Wilkinson
), publisher of the Los Angeles
newspaper The Daily Sentinel. Britt's attitude changes when James is found dead from an allergic reaction to a bee sting. After the funeral, Britt fires the staff aside from his maid, but later re-hires Kato (Jay Chou
), James' mechanic and a skilled martial artist.
Britt and Kato get drunk together and, upon agreeing that they both hated James, visit the graveyard to cut the head off James' memorial statue. After they succeed, they rescue a nearby couple being mugged. When police mistake Britt and Kato themselves for criminals, Kato evades them in a car chase as he and Britt return to the mansion.
Britt convinces Kato they should become crime-fighters who pose as criminals in order to infiltrate real criminals, and to prevent enemies from using innocents against them. Kato develops a car outfitted with several gadgets and weapons, which they call the Black Beauty. Britt plans to capture Benjamin Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz
), a Russian mobster uniting the criminal families of Los Angeles under his command, and whom his father was trying to expose. To get Chudnofsky's attention, Britt uses The Daily Sentinel as a vehicle to publish articles about the "high-profile criminal" the Green Hornet.
Britt hires Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz
), who has a degree in journalism and a minor in criminology, as his assistant and researcher, and uses her unwitting advice to raise the Green Hornet's profile. Britt and Kato blow up several of Chudnofsky's meth labs, leaving calling cards so Chudnofsky can contact them. Throughout all this, The Daily Sentinel managing editor Mike Axford (Edward James Olmos
) fears this single-minded coverage will endanger Britt's life, and District Attorney Frank Scanlon (David Harbour
) frets over public perception that he cannot stop the Green Hornet.
Britt asks Lenore out, but she rebuffs him and instead invites Kato to dinner, making Britt jealous. Kato learns from her that mobsters often offer a peace summit to rivals in order to get close enough to kill them; Britt then tells Kato that Chudnofsky has offered them such a meeting. Kato tries dissuading him, but Britt, feeling overshadowed, follows his instincts. This nearly proves fatal when Chudnofsky tries to kill them.
Barely escaping to the mansion, Britt and Kato argue and fight, and Britt fires both Kato and Lenore, whom he believes are in a relationship. Kato receives an email from Chudnofsky on the Hornet's calling-card email address, offering $1 million dollars and half of Los Angeles if he kills Britt. Meanwhile, Britt discovers Scanlon is corrupt, learning that he tried to bribe James into downplaying the city's level of crime in order to help his career.
Scanlon invites Britt to meet in a restaurant, where he reveals he murdered Britt's father. Kato arrives, and instead of killing Britt attacks Chudnofsky's men, allowing him and Britt, whom Chudnofsky deduces is the real Green Hornet, to escape. At The Daily Sentinel, Britt intends to upload a recording of Scanlon's confession onto the Web — and belatedly discovers he did not manage to record it. Chudnofsky and his men, who followed the duo there, engage them in a firefight. Kato ultimately stabs Chudnofsky in self-defense and Britt shoots him to death. A SWAT
team appears and fires at the Green Hornet and Kato, who use the remains of their nearly demolished Black Beauty to run Scanlon out the 10th-floor window, killing him. The Green Hornet and Kato flee to Lenore's house, where she learns their secret identities and that she has been the accidental mastermind behind the Green Hornet's plots. Despite being furious, she helps them hide from the police and tends to Britt's shoulder gunshot wound.
The next morning, Britt promotes Axford to editor-in-chief and stages being shot in the shoulder by Kato, further establishing the Green Hornet as a threat (and allowing Britt to get treated by professionals in a hospital). Later, the two weld James' stolen bust back onto his memorial statue. Now with Lenore to aid them, Britt and Kato vow to continue protecting the law by breaking it.
reported in October 1992 that The Green Hornet was one of the properties represented by Leisure Concepts Inc.
, and though trade paper said, without explanation, "rights in limbo", negotiations were ongoing with Universal Pictures
. By September 1993, Chuck Pfarrer
had finished the screenplay. Rich Wilkes
was hired to rewrite Pfarrer's script, which resulted in George Clooney
signing a pay-or-play contract. Clooney dropped out in December 1995 to star in Batman and Robin, and an anonymous source at Universal told Entertainment Weekly
the following May that Greg Kinnear
was being looked at for the title role. Jason Scott Lee by this time had signed on to co-star as Kato. Universal hired music video director Michel Gondry
in January 1997 for his feature film directional debut. Gondry rewrote the Wilkes screenplay with Edward Neumeier
, saying that "after one-and-a-half years, it was shelved by the studio. . . . We already had the designs for the cars, the weapons. . . . Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd Levin
had been signed on to produce by January 1997. Mark Wahlberg
was offered the lead role, but the film languished in development hell
and Gondry eventually left.
In April 2000, Universal entered early negotiations with Jet Li
to star as Kato for $5.2 million against 5% of the film's gross. Dark Horse Entertainment
and Charles Gordon
joined Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin as producers. Christopher McQuarrie
was writing a script by June 2000, but with it uncompleted by October, Li moved on to work on The One while remaining attached to The Green Hornet. After spending about $10 million in development since 1992, Universal put The Green Hornet in turnaround in November 2001, by which time Li and the producers were no longer involved. Paramount
and Columbia Pictures
showed interest in picking up Universal's option
, but Miramax Films
won the bidding that month with what Variety
reported as "a deal approaching $3 million." In May 2003 the studio was working with automobile companies on product placement
opportunities for the Black Beauty. As part of the deal, Miramax would receive its "hero car" and $35 million in additional marketing. The car company that would have landed the deal would be given the chance to help develop The Green Hornet, since a script had yet to be written and no director was attached to the planned 2005 release. Variety noted this figure would have tied the record $35 million deal between Ford Motor Company
and MGM that featured the company's Aston Martin Vanquish, Jaguar XKR, and Ford Thunderbird
in the James Bond
film Die Another Day
.
In February 2004, Miramax president Harvey Weinstein
hired cult film
maker and comic book
writer Kevin Smith
to write and direct the film, based on their previous four-film collaborations. "I dig the fact that he kicked off a run of billionaire playboys who decided to put on a mask and fight crime and that he was Batman
before there was a Batman," Smith said. "I always said I'd never do a superhero film, based on my limited experience writing on Superman Lives and having to answer to the studio, Jon Peters
, the comics company and eventually a director. Then there's a fandom
that gets up in arms if you even try to stray from their character. Here, there is simplicity in the character and the situation." Jon Gordon and Hannah Minghella were now on as producers, with Harold Berkowitz and George Trendle, son of the character's co-creator, as executive producers.
Smith approached Jake Gyllenhaal
for the lead role in March 2004. In mid-November of that year, he said he had written about 100 pages, and estimated another 100 to come. In February 2006, Smith's official website noted, "Kevin officially no longer has anything to do with the Fletch or Green Hornet projects." Smith went on to write the Dynamite Entertainment
comic book Green Hornet, which has run 11 issues as of late 2010.
In March 2007, producer Neal H. Moritz
, who had been trying to acquire the film rights to the character for years, obtained the rights and through his Sony-based production company Original Film optioned them to Columbia Pictures
. In July 2007 Seth Rogen
, in addition to starring in the lead role, was hired to co-write the script with frequent collaborator Evan Goldberg
. Columbia also hired Rogen as an executive producer
for The Green Hornet. Rogen in July 2007 said he had not begun writing the screenplay yet, but anticipated the tone would be that of "a buddy action movie" with humor, "like Lethal Weapon
and 48 Hrs.
. In September 2008, Columbia Pictures announced a June 25, 2010, release date, and that Hong Kong star Stephen Chow
had signed on to direct and to co-star as Kato. Chow, a fan of the TV show as a kid, explained, "The idea of stepping into Bruce Lee
's shoes as Kato is both humbling and thrilling, and to get the chance to direct the project as my American movie debut is simply a dream come true." Chow dropped out as director the following December over creative differences. On February 24, 2009, Columbia Pictures announced that Michel Gondry
would direct the film, on which Chow had remained as Kato, after impressing Columbia production presidents Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach with his pitch. Gondry had previously been involved with The Green Hornet when Universal Pictures was planning its version in 1997.
Chow dropped out as Kato in July 2009 over scheduling conflicts with other projects. By this time the release date had been pushed to July 9, 2010. In August, he was replaced with Taiwanese singer-actor Jay Chou
not knowing he was a famous Asian pop singer. The studio was then in early talks with Nicolas Cage
to play the gangster villain, and Cameron Diaz
was negotiating to play researcher and love interest Lenore Case.
had been in talks to play the role of Benjamin Chudnofsky, saying in 2009, "The Green Hornet was something I wanted to do. I think Michel Gondry is very talented and I had hoped it would work. But I think Seth Rogen and Michel had a different direction for the character totally than the way I wanted to go. ... I wasn't interested in just being straight-up bad guy who was killing people willy-nilly. I had to have some humanity and try to give it something where you could understand why the character was the way he was. But there wasn't enough time to develop it."
The filmmakers had wanted Van Williams
, who played the Green Hornet in the 1960s television series, to make a cameo appearance
as a cemetery guard, but Williams was unavailable.
considered filming The Green Hornet in Detroit, Michigan
, New York City
, and Louisiana
, but ultimately chose Los Angeles, California
, as the primary location shooting. "Ultimately, we made the decision, and thankfully the studio agreed with us, that the creative positives of shooting in Los Angeles outweighed the tax incentive
s offered to us elsewhere," Moritz said. Principal photography
began at Sony Pictures Studios
in Culver City, California
on September 2, 2009 for one week. Filming then moved to Chinatown, Los Angeles
for scenes featuring Kato's apartment. Through November, other locations included Sun Valley, Holmby Hills (specifically Fleur de Lys, which played the part of the Reid mansion), Bel-Air, Hawthorne
and various locations downtown, including City Hall
and the Los Angeles Times Building
.
Crown sedans from model years 1964 to 1966 to portray the Green Hornet's luxurious supercar, the Black Beauty. Twenty-six of those cars were wrecked during production and three survived in pristine condition.
.
In July 2009, Sony presented a panel at San Diego Comic-Con International, where Seth Rogen
and director Michel Gondry
unveiled the first look for the Black Beauty. The first trailer
was released online on June 24, 2010.
The film was released in the U.S. and some foreign markets on January 14, 2011, opening in 3,584 theaters domestically.
, Blu-ray, and Blu-ray 3D on May 3, 2011.
, 44% of 211 critics, and 21% of the "Top Critics", gave the film a positive review, with an average score of 5.2/10. Review aggregate Metacritic
assigned the film an average score of 39/100. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times
called it "[a]n anemic, 97-pound weakling of the action comedy persuasion ... a boring bromedy that features mumblecore
heroics instead of the real thing." Lou Lumenick of the New York Post
found it "an overblown, interminable and unfunny update (in badly added 3-D)", and called star Rogen "miscast". UK critic Peter Bradshaw of the British newspaper The Guardian
, said, "Almost everything about the film is disappointing. Christoph Waltz is under-par as the villain with nothing like the steely charisma of his Nazi in Inglourious Basterds. Richard Roeper
gave the film a D+, calling it "a lazy, sloppy, unfunny comedy that makes almost no use of the 3-D technology", and judging that "it just falls flat." Roger Ebert
gave it one star and called it "an almost unendurable demonstration of a movie with nothing to be about. Although it follows the rough storyline of previous versions of the title, it neglects the construction of a plot engine to pull us through." He also noted the poor use of 3-D and suggested it was added solely in order to charge extra.
However, Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News gave it 3 stars out of 5, and commented that the "irreverently funny" film had "a vibe so casual you half expect star Seth Rogen to amble off screen and put his feet up on the seat next to you," and praising director Gondry's "sense of humor and acute visual skill" even while calling the movie "cheerfully unfocused".
s and a die-cast Black Beauty, among other collectibles. Hollywood Collectibles has made a full-size prop gas gun replica. Mezco Toyz has made a set of 12-inch action figures, with the prototypes donated to the Museum of the Moving Image.
The studio and CKE Restaurants, Inc., the parent company of Carl's Jr.
and Hardee's
, formed a promotional marketing partnership that included commercials featuring Seth Rogen and Jay Chou in character as the Green Hornet and Kato; a beverage promotion with Dr. Pepper; The Green Hornet food items, kids' meal toys, and employee uniforms; and a contest with the grand prize of a Black Beauty car from the film.
A tie-in
video game for iPhone
and iPad
was released, entitled The Green Hornet: Wheels of Justice. The game is a 3D top-down driving game. It also featured a hidden mini-game fighting game
called The Green Hornet: Crime Fighter, which was also released for browsers and Android phones.
television show MythBusters
aired a "Green Hornet Special" that featured Seth Rogen joining the hosts in testing two "myths" from the movie. The cable network Syfy
aired a marathon of the TV series The Green Hornet
on January 11, 2011, as a tie-in to the film's release.
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...
action-comedy film based on the character of the same name
The Green Hornet
The Green Hornet is an American radio and television masked vigilante created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, with input from radio director James Jewell, in 1936. Since his radio debut in the 1930s, the Green Hornet has appeared in numerous serialized dramas in a wide variety of media...
that had originated in a 1930s radio program
The Green Hornet (radio series)
The Green Hornet is an American radio adventure series that debuted in 1936 and introduced the character of the Green Hornet, a masked vigilante.-Production history:...
and has appeared in movie serials, a television series
The Green Hornet (TV series)
The Green Hornet is a television show on the ABC US television network. It aired for the 1966–1967 TV season, and starred Van Williams as the Green Hornet/Britt Reid and Bruce Lee as Kato.- Episodes:...
, comic books, and other media. Directed by Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry is an Academy Award winning filmmaker, whose works include being a commercial director, music video director, and a screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène. - Life and career :...
, the film stars Seth Rogen
Seth Rogen
Seth Rogen is a Canadian stand-up comedian, actor, producer, screenwriter, and voice artist. Rogen began his career doing stand-up comedy during his teen years, winning the Vancouver Amateur Comedy Contest in 1998. While still living in his native Vancouver, he landed a small part in Freaks and...
, Jay Chou
Jay Chou
Jay Chou is a Taiwanese musician, singer-songwriter, music and film producer, actor and director who has won the World Music Award four times. In 1998 he was discovered in a talent contest where he displayed his piano and song-writing skills. Over the next two years, he was hired to compose for...
, Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He received international acclaim for his portrayal of SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award and...
and Cameron Diaz
Cameron Diaz
Cameron Michelle Diaz is an American actress and former model. She became famous during the 1990s with roles in the movies The Mask, My Best Friend's Wedding, and There's Something About Mary. Other high-profile credits include the two Charlie's Angels films, voicing the character Princess Fiona...
.
The film was released in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
on January 14, 2011, in versions including RealD Cinema and IMAX 3D.
Plot
Britt Reid (Seth RogenSeth Rogen
Seth Rogen is a Canadian stand-up comedian, actor, producer, screenwriter, and voice artist. Rogen began his career doing stand-up comedy during his teen years, winning the Vancouver Amateur Comedy Contest in 1998. While still living in his native Vancouver, he landed a small part in Freaks and...
) is the irresponsible, 28-year-old slacker son of widower James Reid (Tom Wilkinson
Tom Wilkinson
Thomas Geoffrey "Tom" Wilkinson, OBE is a British actor. He has twice been nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton...
), publisher of the Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
newspaper The Daily Sentinel. Britt's attitude changes when James is found dead from an allergic reaction to a bee sting. After the funeral, Britt fires the staff aside from his maid, but later re-hires Kato (Jay Chou
Jay Chou
Jay Chou is a Taiwanese musician, singer-songwriter, music and film producer, actor and director who has won the World Music Award four times. In 1998 he was discovered in a talent contest where he displayed his piano and song-writing skills. Over the next two years, he was hired to compose for...
), James' mechanic and a skilled martial artist.
Britt and Kato get drunk together and, upon agreeing that they both hated James, visit the graveyard to cut the head off James' memorial statue. After they succeed, they rescue a nearby couple being mugged. When police mistake Britt and Kato themselves for criminals, Kato evades them in a car chase as he and Britt return to the mansion.
Britt convinces Kato they should become crime-fighters who pose as criminals in order to infiltrate real criminals, and to prevent enemies from using innocents against them. Kato develops a car outfitted with several gadgets and weapons, which they call the Black Beauty. Britt plans to capture Benjamin Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He received international acclaim for his portrayal of SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award and...
), a Russian mobster uniting the criminal families of Los Angeles under his command, and whom his father was trying to expose. To get Chudnofsky's attention, Britt uses The Daily Sentinel as a vehicle to publish articles about the "high-profile criminal" the Green Hornet.
Britt hires Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz
Cameron Diaz
Cameron Michelle Diaz is an American actress and former model. She became famous during the 1990s with roles in the movies The Mask, My Best Friend's Wedding, and There's Something About Mary. Other high-profile credits include the two Charlie's Angels films, voicing the character Princess Fiona...
), who has a degree in journalism and a minor in criminology, as his assistant and researcher, and uses her unwitting advice to raise the Green Hornet's profile. Britt and Kato blow up several of Chudnofsky's meth labs, leaving calling cards so Chudnofsky can contact them. Throughout all this, The Daily Sentinel managing editor Mike Axford (Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos is an American actor and director. Among his most memorable roles are William Adama in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, Lt...
) fears this single-minded coverage will endanger Britt's life, and District Attorney Frank Scanlon (David Harbour
David Harbour
David Harbour is an American actor who has performed in film, television and in the theater. He is known for his role as villain Gregg Beam in Quantum of Solace, as Shep Campbell in Revolutionary Road, and as Russell Crowe's source in State of Play...
) frets over public perception that he cannot stop the Green Hornet.
Britt asks Lenore out, but she rebuffs him and instead invites Kato to dinner, making Britt jealous. Kato learns from her that mobsters often offer a peace summit to rivals in order to get close enough to kill them; Britt then tells Kato that Chudnofsky has offered them such a meeting. Kato tries dissuading him, but Britt, feeling overshadowed, follows his instincts. This nearly proves fatal when Chudnofsky tries to kill them.
Barely escaping to the mansion, Britt and Kato argue and fight, and Britt fires both Kato and Lenore, whom he believes are in a relationship. Kato receives an email from Chudnofsky on the Hornet's calling-card email address, offering $1 million dollars and half of Los Angeles if he kills Britt. Meanwhile, Britt discovers Scanlon is corrupt, learning that he tried to bribe James into downplaying the city's level of crime in order to help his career.
Scanlon invites Britt to meet in a restaurant, where he reveals he murdered Britt's father. Kato arrives, and instead of killing Britt attacks Chudnofsky's men, allowing him and Britt, whom Chudnofsky deduces is the real Green Hornet, to escape. At The Daily Sentinel, Britt intends to upload a recording of Scanlon's confession onto the Web — and belatedly discovers he did not manage to record it. Chudnofsky and his men, who followed the duo there, engage them in a firefight. Kato ultimately stabs Chudnofsky in self-defense and Britt shoots him to death. A SWAT
SWAT
A SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...
team appears and fires at the Green Hornet and Kato, who use the remains of their nearly demolished Black Beauty to run Scanlon out the 10th-floor window, killing him. The Green Hornet and Kato flee to Lenore's house, where she learns their secret identities and that she has been the accidental mastermind behind the Green Hornet's plots. Despite being furious, she helps them hide from the police and tends to Britt's shoulder gunshot wound.
The next morning, Britt promotes Axford to editor-in-chief and stages being shot in the shoulder by Kato, further establishing the Green Hornet as a threat (and allowing Britt to get treated by professionals in a hospital). Later, the two weld James' stolen bust back onto his memorial statue. Now with Lenore to aid them, Britt and Kato vow to continue protecting the law by breaking it.
Cast
- Seth RogenSeth RogenSeth Rogen is a Canadian stand-up comedian, actor, producer, screenwriter, and voice artist. Rogen began his career doing stand-up comedy during his teen years, winning the Vancouver Amateur Comedy Contest in 1998. While still living in his native Vancouver, he landed a small part in Freaks and...
as Britt Reid / The Green HornetThe Green HornetThe Green Hornet is an American radio and television masked vigilante created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, with input from radio director James Jewell, in 1936. Since his radio debut in the 1930s, the Green Hornet has appeared in numerous serialized dramas in a wide variety of media...
: A wealthy newspaper publisher who is secretly the masked crimefighter The Green Hornet. - Jay ChouJay ChouJay Chou is a Taiwanese musician, singer-songwriter, music and film producer, actor and director who has won the World Music Award four times. In 1998 he was discovered in a talent contest where he displayed his piano and song-writing skills. Over the next two years, he was hired to compose for...
as KatoKato (The Green Hornet)Kato is a fictional character from The Green Hornet series. This character has also appeared with the Green Hornet in film, television, book and comic book versions. Kato was the Hornet's assistant and has been played by a number of actors...
: A personal mechanic and martial arts expert who becomes the Green Hornet's valet and partner. - Cameron DiazCameron DiazCameron Michelle Diaz is an American actress and former model. She became famous during the 1990s with roles in the movies The Mask, My Best Friend's Wedding, and There's Something About Mary. Other high-profile credits include the two Charlie's Angels films, voicing the character Princess Fiona...
as Lenore "Casey" Case: The love interest of Reid and Kato. She is also Reid's secretary for The Daily Sentinel. - Tom WilkinsonTom WilkinsonThomas Geoffrey "Tom" Wilkinson, OBE is a British actor. He has twice been nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton...
as James Reid: Britt's stern, wealthy father and a successful newspaper publisher. - Christoph WaltzChristoph WaltzChristoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He received international acclaim for his portrayal of SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award and...
as Benjamin Chudnofsky: A paranoid Russian gangster who plans to join all of the crime families of Los Angeles together to organize a "super-mafiaMafiaThe Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
." Throughout the film, he worries that he is losing his edge, and eventually starts calling himself "Bloodnofsky" in a misguided attempt to intimidate his enemies. - David HarbourDavid HarbourDavid Harbour is an American actor who has performed in film, television and in the theater. He is known for his role as villain Gregg Beam in Quantum of Solace, as Shep Campbell in Revolutionary Road, and as Russell Crowe's source in State of Play...
as D.A. Frank Scanlon: In this film, Scanlon is an ally of Benjamin Chudnofsky who bribed town officials into downplaying the city's level of crime in order to help his career. - Edward James OlmosEdward James OlmosEdward James Olmos is an American actor and director. Among his most memorable roles are William Adama in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, Lt...
as Mike Axford, managing editor of The Daily Sentinel - Jamie HarrisJamie Harris (actor)Jamie Harris is an English actor. He is the son of actor Richard Harris and socialite Elizabeth Rees-Williams. His two brothers are actor Jared Harris and director Damian Harris.-Life and career:...
as Popeye - Chad ColemanChad ColemanChad Coleman is an American film and television actor. He is best known for playing the character Dennis "Cutty" Wise from The Wire.-Life and career:...
as Chili - Edward FurlongEdward FurlongEdward Walter Furlong is an American actor whose best known film roles are John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Daniel Vinyard in American History X. He is a two-time Saturn Award nominee, winning the 1992 Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor for his performance in...
as Tupper: A methMethamphetamineMethamphetamine is a psychostimulant of the phenethylamine and amphetamine class of psychoactive drugs...
dealer - Analeigh TiptonAnaleigh TiptonAnaleigh Christian Tipton is an American figure skater, actress, and fashion model, most noted for placing third on Cycle 11 of America's Next Top Model and for starring in the 2011 film Crazy, Stupid, Love....
as Ana Lee - Jill RemezJill RemezJill Remez is an American actress known for her acting work in several films and television programs as well as her skill at puppetry, having been one of the puppeteers behind Miss Piggy for The Jim Henson Company...
as Daily Sentinel reporter - Reuben LangdonReuben LangdonReuben Christopher Langdon is an American stunt actor, motion capture actor, actor, martial artist and voice actor for various martial arts films, television shows, and video games. He is a co-founder, producer and action director for Just Cause Productions, a motion capture company for various...
as Crackhead - Jerry TrimbleJerry TrimbleJerry Foster Trimble, Jr. is an American actor, stuntman, writer, and World Champion.-Early life:At 15 Jerry was inspired by the late Bruce Lee and began studying the Korean art of Taekwon-Do. In six months he began teaching it. At 16 he earned the rank of first-degree black belt and became the...
as Chudnofsky's man - James FrancoJames FrancoJames Edward Franco is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author, painter, performance artist and instructor at New York University. He left college in order to pursue acting and started off his career by making guest appearances on television series in the 1990s...
(uncredited) as Danny "Crystal" Clear, a rival of Chudnofsky's.
Development
VarietyVariety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
reported in October 1992 that The Green Hornet was one of the properties represented by Leisure Concepts Inc.
4Kids Entertainment
4Kids Entertainment is an American film and television production company in bankruptcy since April 2011. It is known for English-dubbing Japanese anime and specializing in the acquisition, production and licensing of children's entertainment around the United States...
, and though trade paper said, without explanation, "rights in limbo", negotiations were ongoing with Universal Pictures
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
. By September 1993, Chuck Pfarrer
Chuck Pfarrer
Charles Patrick "Chuck" Pfarrer, III is an American novelist, screenwriter, and former U.S. Navy SEAL from Biloxi, Mississippi.-Biography:...
had finished the screenplay. Rich Wilkes
Rich Wilkes
Rich Wilkes , attended El Camino High School in Oceanside, CA, and is an American filmmaker. His work to date is generally noted for its rooting in contemporary music and youth culture.- As screenwriter :...
was hired to rewrite Pfarrer's script, which resulted in George Clooney
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. For his work as an actor, he has received two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award...
signing a pay-or-play contract. Clooney dropped out in December 1995 to star in Batman and Robin, and an anonymous source at Universal told Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
the following May that Greg Kinnear
Greg Kinnear
Gregory "Greg" Kinnear is an American actor and television personality who first rose to stardom in 1991. He has appeared in more than 20 motion pictures, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in As Good as It Gets.-Early life:Kinnear was born in Logansport, Indiana, the son of...
was being looked at for the title role. Jason Scott Lee by this time had signed on to co-star as Kato. Universal hired music video director Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry is an Academy Award winning filmmaker, whose works include being a commercial director, music video director, and a screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène. - Life and career :...
in January 1997 for his feature film directional debut. Gondry rewrote the Wilkes screenplay with Edward Neumeier
Edward Neumeier
Edward Neumeier is an American screenwriter best known for his work on the science fiction movies RoboCop and Starship Troopers...
, saying that "after one-and-a-half years, it was shelved by the studio. . . . We already had the designs for the cars, the weapons. . . . Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd Levin
Lloyd Levin
-Early life:Levin is a native of Paramus, New Jersey, where he attended Paramus High School.-Producing career:He won the Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Picture for his work on United 93. He was also nominated for a BAFTA for the same film. He received a nomination for a Golden Satellite...
had been signed on to produce by January 1997. Mark Wahlberg
Mark Wahlberg
Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg is an American actor, film and television producer, and former rapper. He was known as Marky Mark in his earlier years, and became famous for his 1991 debut as a musician with the band Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. He was named No. 1 on VH1's 40 Hottest Hotties of...
was offered the lead role, but the film languished in development hell
Development hell
In the jargon of the media-industry, "development hell" is a period during which a film or other project is trapped in development...
and Gondry eventually left.
In April 2000, Universal entered early negotiations with Jet Li
Jet Li
The fame gained by his sports winnings led to a career as a martial arts film star, beginning in mainland China and then continuing into Hong Kong. Li acquired his screen name in 1982 in the Philippines when a publicity company thought his real name was too hard to pronounce...
to star as Kato for $5.2 million against 5% of the film's gross. Dark Horse Entertainment
Dark Horse Entertainment
Dark Horse Entertainment is a motion picture and television production arm of American comic book publishing company Dark Horse Comics.They also have a sub-label, Dark Horse Indie.-Productions:*30 Days of Night*B&B*Barb Wire...
and Charles Gordon
Charles Gordon (producer)
Charles Gordon is an American film producer and brother to Lawrence Gordon.-Selected filmography:*Night of the Creeps *The Wrong Guys *Field of Dreams *K-9 *Lock Up *Die Hard 2...
joined Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin as producers. Christopher McQuarrie
Christopher McQuarrie
Christopher McQuarrie is an American screenwriter, producer and director. His screenplays include The Usual Suspects, for which he won the 1996 Academy Award, The Way of the Gun and Valkyrie....
was writing a script by June 2000, but with it uncompleted by October, Li moved on to work on The One while remaining attached to The Green Hornet. After spending about $10 million in development since 1992, Universal put The Green Hornet in turnaround in November 2001, by which time Li and the producers were no longer involved. Paramount
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
and Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
showed interest in picking up Universal's option
Option (finance)
In finance, an option is a derivative financial instrument that specifies a contract between two parties for a future transaction on an asset at a reference price. The buyer of the option gains the right, but not the obligation, to engage in that transaction, while the seller incurs the...
, but Miramax Films
Miramax Films
Miramax Films is an American entertainment company known for distributing independent and foreign films. For its first 14 years the company was privately owned by its founders, Bob and Harvey Weinstein...
won the bidding that month with what Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
reported as "a deal approaching $3 million." In May 2003 the studio was working with automobile companies on product placement
Product placement
Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the...
opportunities for the Black Beauty. As part of the deal, Miramax would receive its "hero car" and $35 million in additional marketing. The car company that would have landed the deal would be given the chance to help develop The Green Hornet, since a script had yet to be written and no director was attached to the planned 2005 release. Variety noted this figure would have tied the record $35 million deal between Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
and MGM that featured the company's Aston Martin Vanquish, Jaguar XKR, and Ford Thunderbird
Ford Thunderbird
The Thunderbird , is an automobile manufactured by the Ford Motor Company in the United States over eleven model generations from 1955 through 2005...
in the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
film Die Another Day
Die Another Day
Die Another Day is the 20th spy film in the James Bond series, and the fourth and last film to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond; it is also the last Bond film of the original timeline with the series being rebooted with Casino Royale...
.
In February 2004, Miramax president Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein, CBE is an American film producer and movie studio chairman. He is best known as co-founder of Miramax Films. He and his brother Bob have been co-chairmen of The Weinstein Company, their film production company, since 2005...
hired cult film
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
maker and comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
writer Kevin Smith
Kevin Smith
Kevin Patrick Smith is an American screenwriter, actor, film producer, and director, as well as a popular comic book writer, author, comedian/raconteur, and internet radio personality best recognized by viewers as Silent Bob...
to write and direct the film, based on their previous four-film collaborations. "I dig the fact that he kicked off a run of billionaire playboys who decided to put on a mask and fight crime and that he was Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
before there was a Batman," Smith said. "I always said I'd never do a superhero film, based on my limited experience writing on Superman Lives and having to answer to the studio, Jon Peters
Jon Peters
Jon Peters is an American movie producer.-Early life:Peters was born John H. Peters in Van Nuys, California, the son of Helen , a receptionist, and Jack Peters, a cook...
, the comics company and eventually a director. Then there's a fandom
Fandom
Fandom is a term used to refer to a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of sympathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest...
that gets up in arms if you even try to stray from their character. Here, there is simplicity in the character and the situation." Jon Gordon and Hannah Minghella were now on as producers, with Harold Berkowitz and George Trendle, son of the character's co-creator, as executive producers.
Smith approached Jake Gyllenhaal
Jake Gyllenhaal
Jacob Benjamin "Jake" Gyllenhaal is an American actor. The son of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, Gyllenhaal began acting at age ten...
for the lead role in March 2004. In mid-November of that year, he said he had written about 100 pages, and estimated another 100 to come. In February 2006, Smith's official website noted, "Kevin officially no longer has anything to do with the Fletch or Green Hornet projects." Smith went on to write the Dynamite Entertainment
Dynamite Entertainment
Dynamite Entertainment is an American comic book company that primarily publishes licensed franchises of adaptations of other media. These include adaptations of film properties such as Army of Darkness, Terminator and RoboCop, literary properties such as Zorro, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Alice in...
comic book Green Hornet, which has run 11 issues as of late 2010.
In March 2007, producer Neal H. Moritz
Neal H. Moritz
Neal H. Moritz is an American film producer. He is the founder of Original Film.-Life and career:He has over 70 films to his credit...
, who had been trying to acquire the film rights to the character for years, obtained the rights and through his Sony-based production company Original Film optioned them to Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
. In July 2007 Seth Rogen
Seth Rogen
Seth Rogen is a Canadian stand-up comedian, actor, producer, screenwriter, and voice artist. Rogen began his career doing stand-up comedy during his teen years, winning the Vancouver Amateur Comedy Contest in 1998. While still living in his native Vancouver, he landed a small part in Freaks and...
, in addition to starring in the lead role, was hired to co-write the script with frequent collaborator Evan Goldberg
Evan Goldberg
Evan Goldberg is a Canadian film screenwriter and producer. Goldberg attended Point Grey Secondary School and McGill University before joining the staff of Da Ali G Show along with his childhood friend and comedy partner Seth Rogen. Rogen and Goldberg collaborated the films Knocked Up, Superbad,...
. Columbia also hired Rogen as an executive producer
Executive producer
An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
for The Green Hornet. Rogen in July 2007 said he had not begun writing the screenplay yet, but anticipated the tone would be that of "a buddy action movie" with humor, "like Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon is a 1987 American buddy cop action film and the first in a series of films, all directed by Richard Donner and starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as a mismatched pair of LAPD detectives, and Gary Busey as their primary adversary...
and 48 Hrs.
48 Hrs.
48 Hrs. is a 1982 American action comedy film directed by Walter Hill, starring Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy as a cop and convict, respectively, who team up to catch a cop-killer. The title refers to the amount of time they have to solve the crime. This was Eddie Murphy's film debut , and Joel...
. In September 2008, Columbia Pictures announced a June 25, 2010, release date, and that Hong Kong star Stephen Chow
Stephen Chow
Stephen Chow Sing-Chi is a Hong Kong actor, comedian, screenwriter, film director and producer.- Professional career :Stephen Chow began as a temporary actor for TVB. He entered TVB in early 1980s, and was trained there, although he had few opportunities to appear in films. Chow graduated from...
had signed on to direct and to co-star as Kato. Chow, a fan of the TV show as a kid, explained, "The idea of stepping into Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee was a Chinese American, Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement...
's shoes as Kato is both humbling and thrilling, and to get the chance to direct the project as my American movie debut is simply a dream come true." Chow dropped out as director the following December over creative differences. On February 24, 2009, Columbia Pictures announced that Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry is an Academy Award winning filmmaker, whose works include being a commercial director, music video director, and a screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène. - Life and career :...
would direct the film, on which Chow had remained as Kato, after impressing Columbia production presidents Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach with his pitch. Gondry had previously been involved with The Green Hornet when Universal Pictures was planning its version in 1997.
Chow dropped out as Kato in July 2009 over scheduling conflicts with other projects. By this time the release date had been pushed to July 9, 2010. In August, he was replaced with Taiwanese singer-actor Jay Chou
Jay Chou
Jay Chou is a Taiwanese musician, singer-songwriter, music and film producer, actor and director who has won the World Music Award four times. In 1998 he was discovered in a talent contest where he displayed his piano and song-writing skills. Over the next two years, he was hired to compose for...
not knowing he was a famous Asian pop singer. The studio was then in early talks with Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage is an American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona , The Rock , Face/Off , Gone in 60 Seconds , Adaptation , National Treasure , Ghost Rider , Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , and...
to play the gangster villain, and Cameron Diaz
Cameron Diaz
Cameron Michelle Diaz is an American actress and former model. She became famous during the 1990s with roles in the movies The Mask, My Best Friend's Wedding, and There's Something About Mary. Other high-profile credits include the two Charlie's Angels films, voicing the character Princess Fiona...
was negotiating to play researcher and love interest Lenore Case.
Casting
Nicolas CageNicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage is an American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona , The Rock , Face/Off , Gone in 60 Seconds , Adaptation , National Treasure , Ghost Rider , Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , and...
had been in talks to play the role of Benjamin Chudnofsky, saying in 2009, "The Green Hornet was something I wanted to do. I think Michel Gondry is very talented and I had hoped it would work. But I think Seth Rogen and Michel had a different direction for the character totally than the way I wanted to go. ... I wasn't interested in just being straight-up bad guy who was killing people willy-nilly. I had to have some humanity and try to give it something where you could understand why the character was the way he was. But there wasn't enough time to develop it."
The filmmakers had wanted Van Williams
Van Williams
Van Zandt Williams is a former actor best known for his television role as Britt Reid/the Green Hornet. He teamed for one season with the late Bruce Lee as his partner Kato, in the television series The Green Hornet, broadcast on ABC during the 1966-67 season.Williams was also known for his...
, who played the Green Hornet in the 1960s television series, to make a cameo appearance
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
as a cemetery guard, but Williams was unavailable.
Locations
Producer Neal H. MoritzNeal H. Moritz
Neal H. Moritz is an American film producer. He is the founder of Original Film.-Life and career:He has over 70 films to his credit...
considered filming The Green Hornet in Detroit, Michigan
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, and Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, but ultimately chose Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, as the primary location shooting. "Ultimately, we made the decision, and thankfully the studio agreed with us, that the creative positives of shooting in Los Angeles outweighed the tax incentive
Tax incentive
A tax incentive is an aspect of the tax code designed to incentivize, or encourage, a certain type of behavior. This may be accomplished through means including tax holidays, tax deductions, or tax abatements...
s offered to us elsewhere," Moritz said. Principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
began at Sony Pictures Studios
Sony Pictures Studios
The Sony Pictures Studios are a television and film studio complex located in Culver City, California at 10202 West Washington Boulevard and bounded by Culver Boulevard , Washington Boulevard , Overland Avenue and Madison Avenue...
in Culver City, California
Culver City, California
Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883, up from 38,816 at the 2000 census. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also shares a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Culver...
on September 2, 2009 for one week. Filming then moved to Chinatown, Los Angeles
Chinatown, Los Angeles
Chinatown in Los Angeles, California is located in the city's downtown area. Built in 1938, it is the second Chinatown to be constructed in Los Angeles. The original historic Chinatown was founded in the late 19th century, but was demolished to make room for Union Station, the city's major rail...
for scenes featuring Kato's apartment. Through November, other locations included Sun Valley, Holmby Hills (specifically Fleur de Lys, which played the part of the Reid mansion), Bel-Air, Hawthorne
Hawthorne, California
Hawthorne is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California. The city at the 2010 census had a population of 84,293, up from 84,112 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...
and various locations downtown, including City Hall
Los Angeles City Hall
Los Angeles City Hall, completed 1928, is the center of the government of the city of Los Angeles, California, and houses the mayor's office and the meeting chambers and offices of the Los Angeles City Council...
and the Los Angeles Times Building
Los Angeles Times Building
The Los Angeles Times Building is an art moderne building located at 1st and Spring Streets in Los Angeles, California. It is the headquarter of the Los Angeles Times. It was designed by Gordon B...
.
Props
The production modified 29 ImperialImperial (automobile)
Imperial was the Chrysler Corporation's luxury automobile brand between 1955 and 1975, with a brief reappearance in 1981 to 1983.The Imperial name had been used since 1926, but was never a separate make, just the top-of-the-line Chrysler. In 1955, the company decided to spin it off as its own make...
Crown sedans from model years 1964 to 1966 to portray the Green Hornet's luxurious supercar, the Black Beauty. Twenty-six of those cars were wrecked during production and three survived in pristine condition.
Release
Sony replaced the film's June 25, 2010 release date with Grown Ups, which moved The Green Hornet to July 9, 2010. Sony then scheduled the film for December 22, 2010, before announcing on April 23, 2010, that it was pushing to January 14, 2011, to secure more time to convert it to 3D3-D film
A 3-D film or S3D film is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception...
.
In July 2009, Sony presented a panel at San Diego Comic-Con International, where Seth Rogen
Seth Rogen
Seth Rogen is a Canadian stand-up comedian, actor, producer, screenwriter, and voice artist. Rogen began his career doing stand-up comedy during his teen years, winning the Vancouver Amateur Comedy Contest in 1998. While still living in his native Vancouver, he landed a small part in Freaks and...
and director Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry is an Academy Award winning filmmaker, whose works include being a commercial director, music video director, and a screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène. - Life and career :...
unveiled the first look for the Black Beauty. The first trailer
Trailer (film)
A trailer or preview is an advertisement or a commercial for a feature film that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema. The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a feature film screening. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the...
was released online on June 24, 2010.
The film was released in the U.S. and some foreign markets on January 14, 2011, opening in 3,584 theaters domestically.
Home media
The Green Hornet was released on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, Blu-ray, and Blu-ray 3D on May 3, 2011.
Critical
The Green Hornet received generally unfavorable reviews. On the review aggregate Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, 44% of 211 critics, and 21% of the "Top Critics", gave the film a positive review, with an average score of 5.2/10. Review aggregate Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
assigned the film an average score of 39/100. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
called it "[a]n anemic, 97-pound weakling of the action comedy persuasion ... a boring bromedy that features mumblecore
Mumblecore
Mumblecore is an American independent film movement that arose at the turn of the 21st century. Filmmakers associated with the movement include Andrew Bujalski, Lynn Shelton, Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass, Aaron Katz, Joe Swanberg, and Barry Jenkins....
heroics instead of the real thing." Lou Lumenick of the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
found it "an overblown, interminable and unfunny update (in badly added 3-D)", and called star Rogen "miscast". UK critic Peter Bradshaw of the British newspaper The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, said, "Almost everything about the film is disappointing. Christoph Waltz is under-par as the villain with nothing like the steely charisma of his Nazi in Inglourious Basterds. Richard Roeper
Richard Roeper
Richard E. Roeper is an American columnist and film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times and now a co-host on The Roe Conn Show on WLS-AM...
gave the film a D+, calling it "a lazy, sloppy, unfunny comedy that makes almost no use of the 3-D technology", and judging that "it just falls flat." Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave it one star and called it "an almost unendurable demonstration of a movie with nothing to be about. Although it follows the rough storyline of previous versions of the title, it neglects the construction of a plot engine to pull us through." He also noted the poor use of 3-D and suggested it was added solely in order to charge extra.
However, Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News gave it 3 stars out of 5, and commented that the "irreverently funny" film had "a vibe so casual you half expect star Seth Rogen to amble off screen and put his feet up on the seat next to you," and praising director Gondry's "sense of humor and acute visual skill" even while calling the movie "cheerfully unfocused".
Box office
"The Green Hornet" took in $11.1 million on its opening day, $33,526,876 over the three-day weekend, and just over $40 million for the four-day Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday weekend, topping the box office. In its second weekend, it dropped 47% to $17.7 million, finishing second to No Strings Attached. In its third weekend, it earned $11.2 million and finished in fourth place. As of June 19, 2011, the film has earned $98,780,042 domestically and $227,817,248 worldwide.Merchandising
Factory Entertainment produced six-inch action figureAction figure
An action figure is a posable character figurine, made of plastic or other materials, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, video game, or television program. These action figures are usually marketed towards boys and male collectors...
s and a die-cast Black Beauty, among other collectibles. Hollywood Collectibles has made a full-size prop gas gun replica. Mezco Toyz has made a set of 12-inch action figures, with the prototypes donated to the Museum of the Moving Image.
The studio and CKE Restaurants, Inc., the parent company of Carl's Jr.
Carl's Jr.
Carl's Jr. is an American fast-food restaurant chain located mostly in the Western and Southwestern United States. The first store has opened in Canada in Kelowna, BC. They are in the process of expanding to Mexico, Malaysia, Denmark, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Russia, Vietnam,...
and Hardee's
Hardee's
Hardee's is a restaurant chain, located mostly in the Southeast and Midwestern regions of the United States. It has evolved through several corporate ownerships since its establishment in 1960. It is currently owned and operated by CKE Restaurants. Along with its sibling restaurant chain, Carl's...
, formed a promotional marketing partnership that included commercials featuring Seth Rogen and Jay Chou in character as the Green Hornet and Kato; a beverage promotion with Dr. Pepper; The Green Hornet food items, kids' meal toys, and employee uniforms; and a contest with the grand prize of a Black Beauty car from the film.
A tie-in
Tie-in
A tie-in is an authorized product based on a media property a company is releasing, such as a movie or video/DVD, computer game, video game, television program/television series, board game, web site, role-playing game or literary property...
video game for iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
and iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
was released, entitled The Green Hornet: Wheels of Justice. The game is a 3D top-down driving game. It also featured a hidden mini-game fighting game
Fighting game
Fighting game is a video game genre where the player controls an on-screen character and engages in close combat with an opponent. These characters tend to be of equal power and fight matches consisting of several rounds, which take place in an arena. Players must master techniques such as...
called The Green Hornet: Crime Fighter, which was also released for browsers and Android phones.
Promotion
The Discovery ChannelDiscovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
television show MythBusters
MythBusters
MythBusters is a science entertainment TV program created and produced by Beyond Television Productions for the Discovery Channel. The series is screened by numerous international broadcasters, including Discovery Channel Australia, Discovery Channel Latin America, Discovery Channel Canada, Quest...
aired a "Green Hornet Special" that featured Seth Rogen joining the hosts in testing two "myths" from the movie. The cable network Syfy
Syfy
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
aired a marathon of the TV series The Green Hornet
The Green Hornet (TV series)
The Green Hornet is a television show on the ABC US television network. It aired for the 1966–1967 TV season, and starred Van Williams as the Green Hornet/Britt Reid and Bruce Lee as Kato.- Episodes:...
on January 11, 2011, as a tie-in to the film's release.