The Green Hornet is a comic book character who has been around for a long time, but he now looks set to return to the big screen in a reboot from Warrior and The Accountant director Gavin O’Connor. As you may recall, he was last seen in a 2011 movie starring Seth Rogen and Cameron Diaz, but that was met with a tepid response and low box office returns.
It’s surprising then that Paramount Pictures is keen on a new take on the property, but it sounds like the filmmaker is very excited to bring back The Green Hornet. With superhero movies bigger now than they were five years ago, there’s every chance it could find success.
“I’ve been wanting to make this movie — and create this franchise — since I’ve wanted to make movies,” O’Connor revealed in an interview with Deadline. “As a kid, when most of my friends were into Superman and Batman, there was only one superhero who held my interest — The Green Hornet. I always thought he was the baddest badass because he had no superpowers. The Green Hornet was a human superhero. And he didn’t wear a clown costume. He was a criminal, in the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of the criminal world.”
O’Connor went on to reveal that he’s developing the project alongside writer Sean O’Keefe.
“I want to re-mythologize The Green Hornet in a contemporary context, with an emphasis on story and character, while at the same time, incorporating themes that speak to my heart.”
“The comic book movie is the genre of our time. How do we look at it differently? How do we create a distinctive film experience that tells itself differently than other comic book movies How do we land comfortably at the divide between art and industry? How do we go deeper, prompt more emotion? How do we put a beating heart into the character that was never done before? These are my concerns…these are my desires, my intentions, my fears, my goals.” He’s saying all the right things, so here’s hoping the director is now able to deliver!
