After shaky start, 'The Green Hornet' is poised for a strong opening..Seriously?

[Opera Ghost]

Sony Pictures executives were worried last summer that they had a flop on their hands. But new scenes, reshaping in the editing room and a revamped marketing campaign appear to have turned around the film's prospects.
"The Green Hornet" needed a superhero to save it.
Sony Pictures has long been counting on the big budget action-comedy to be a new franchise that could stand alongside hit movie series like "Spider-Man."
Coming off a disastrous holiday season, capped by James L. Brooks' flop "How Do You Know," the studio could ill afford to have "The Green Hornet" play to empty theaters after it invested more than $200 million to make and market the film around the world.
But last summer, early cuts of "The Green Hornet" and scoffs from fanboys at the Comic-Con comic book convention in San Diego had Sony executives worried that they had a flop on their hands, people close to the picture said.
"The studio was nervous, and the fans were cynical," producer Neal Moritz said.
An updated version of a 1930s radio serial, "The Green Hornet" stars comic actor Seth Rogen as a masked crime-fighting vigilante with a tricked-out car and a sidekick named Kato.
The problem: People didn't know what to make of a seemingly awkward hybrid of high-octane action and lowbrow laughs.
"It's a difficult movie to conceive of, and I think that's one of the reasons people were so weirded out when this first came along," said Rogen, who is also a co-writer. "You don't instantly picture a good version of this."
However, the addition of several new scenes, a reshaping in the editing room and a revamped marketing campaign, all aimed at balancing the film's disparate elements, appear to have turned around the film's prospects.
Although its ultimate success will depend on word of mouth, "The Green Hornet" is on track for a strong opening this weekend in the U.S. and Canada of more than $40 million, according to pre-release audience surveys, and is likely to gross as much or more overseas.
If the movie catches on, it could demonstrate that even seemingly doomed projects can be salvaged if a studio is willing to confront and fix its problems.
"There was a period of time when people felt the movie was in trouble, but I don't think we ever lost faith in it," said Doug Belgrad, president of Sony's Columbia Pictures label. "We're absolutely hopeful now that the response to the movie will justify going forward with more."
Sony's confidence was so shaky last year that after production was complete last summer, the studio sought a co-financier to share the risk on the film's cost, which totaled about $130 million, according to two people familiar with the budget (a studio spokesman insisted it was closer to $110 million). But the studio could not find a partner.
It was only the latest problem for a long-troubled project. Two studios spent 15 years unsuccessfully attempting to develop "The Green Hornet" before Moritz brought it to Sony in 2007.
Chinese filmmaker Stephen Chow ("Kung Fu Hustle") and Nicolas Cage, who was to play the villain, both dropped out. They were replaced by "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" director Michel Gondry and actor Christoph Waltz of "Inglourious Basterds."
Along with recutting the picture, the filmmakers shot several new scenes in late 2010. One features James Franco in a cameo role as a crime boss who is shot by Waltz after questioning his ability to intimidate foes.
"That scene did so much to explain the tone of the movie and allow audiences to know it was OK to laugh," Belgrad said. "It was one of many changes that went into finding the right tone."
Another challenge: Although the Green Hornet is a crime fighter in a mask, he doesn't bring the same brand value of superheroes like Batman or Iron Man.
Originally created as a radio show about a newspaper publisher named Brit Reid who fights crime with the help of his valet, the Green Hornet was also a World War II-era film serial. A television show featuring Bruce Lee aired in 1966-67, and the character has appeared only intermittently in comic books.
"The Green Hornet doesn't offer much of a built-in fan base compared to almost any other superhero today," said Craig Shutt, a comics historian and writer.
Sony has tried to take advantage of that ambiguity. "People know the name but don't know what it is," said Marc Weinstock, worldwide marketing president. "We could have fun with the brand without adhering to specific things."
Figuring out just how much fun to have was tricky, however. After a poorly received first trailer that Weinstock admitted "wasn't as fun as the movie really is," the studio recast its advertising and punched up the comedy.
TV ads play up the film's comedic elements. One much-buzzed-about spot uses the 1995 rap song "Gangsta's Paradise," which is played for comedic effect in the film.
Polling indicates that the materials have caught on with domestic audiences, particularly men under 25. Studio executives are also enthusiastic about "The Green Hornet's" prospects overseas, where 3-D tends to be more popular and co-stars Waltz, Cameron Diaz and Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou have established followings.
"People thought the combination of a star known for stoner comedies, a director known for heady art films and myself who makes big action films was crazy," said producer Moritz ("Fast and Furious"). "I can't explain how it worked, but it really did."
ben.fritz(*at*)latimes.com
Times staff writer Chris Lee contributed to this report.

'Green Hornet's' Michel Gondry dreaming big in HollywoodWhat does French auteur Michel Gondry think about 'Green Hornet,' his studio debut and one in which much of the final cut went to co-writer and star Seth Rogen? 'Awesome,' says the director.

Michel Gondry ("Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind," "Be Kind Rewind") is the director of "The Green Hornet." (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times / January 13, 2011)

     
In the magical realm of writer-director Michel Gondry's films, characters defy common sense and dream the impossible dream — sometimes literally — as a matter of course.

In his 2006 surrealist dramedy "The Science of Sleep," Gondry conjured a lo-fi version of the nocturnal subconscious from papier-mâché, bad horse costumes and stop-motion animation. And in the filmmaker's 2004 romantic drama "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (for which Gondry shares a best original screenplay Oscar), Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet's characters don futuristic hair-dryer helmets to erase all the memories they have of each other (en route to falling in love all over again).

Gondry's films can seem magnificently heartfelt and handmade, if not particularly realistic. Ergo, certain words crop up again and again in reviews of his work: "charming" and "idiosyncratic," "quirky" and "naive" — but notably, never "aggressively commercial" or even "mainstream."

Which is why the French music video ace wasn't a no-brainer choice to direct "The Green Hornet," Columbia Pictures' $130-million 3-D superhero comedy starring Seth Rogen and Cameron Diaz that arrives in theaters Friday. It's an adaptation of the '60s television show (and '30s radio serial) of the same name that's full of shoot'em-ups, kung fu beat-downs, FX-enhanced car chases and unmitigated bromance.

"Hornet" is Gondry's first studio movie, his first stab at making what he terms in heavily accented Franglais "popular cinema" and the only film he's directed on which he did not retain final cut.

"If they asked me [to direct 'Hornet'], it's because I'm going to bring something to the project," Gondry said, seated backstage at "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" where he was in the midst of guest directing an episode. "They wanted to make something different. At the same time, I knew they would not let me do a movie that did not speak to the audience. We have to fulfill the expectations of this kind of budget."

It raises the question: Does Gondry, 47, feel the same sense of ownership he's felt on his other films?

He acknowledged being deeply beholden to Rogen, who in addition to playing the lead in "Hornet" produced and co-wrote the film. "Seth was as important, if not more important than the studio," Gondry said. "So I felt, 'Well, it's not really my movie.' I accepted that. But I realized there was still tons I could infiltrate or infuse my personality through discussion all the time."

Co-written and executive produced by Evan Goldberg, "The Green Hornet" centers on Britt Reid (the newly svelte Rogen), the moneyed, party-hearty scion of a stern newspaper magnate. When his dad dies under mysterious circumstances, Britt must take command of a media empire he's unequipped to deal with, also inheriting Reid senior's manservant, Kato (Taiwanese pop star and action movie heartthrob Jay Chou), a cool contraption-making macher who also happens to be a butt-kicking kung fu expert.

Faced with a sudden existential crisis, the two join together as masked crusaders, combating the forces of evil in urban Los Angeles by posing as evildoers themselves while tooling around in a '60s Chrysler Imperial outfitted with nifty rocket launchers, machine guns and a vintage turntable.

It's all a far cry from Gondry's last movie, " Be Kind Rewind," in which bumbling characters played by Jack Black and Mos Def accidentally erase a video store's inventory and try to re-shoot a library of movies — "Ghostbusters," "Driving Miss Daisy" — using a camcorder and cardboard. But in a twist of kismet, Gondry set out to make "Hornet" as his debut feature way back in 1997, before the project was shelved by its then-distributor Universal.

"My ambition was to come to Hollywood and do a Hollywood movie," Gondry explained.

"Hornet" went through a pre-production do-si-do with other directors including Stephen Chow ("Kung Fu Hustle") and Kevin Smith ( "Zack and Miri Make a Porno") and bounced between Universal and Miramax before winding up at Columbia in 2007. According to "Hornet" producer Neal Moritz, Columbia's parent company, Sony Pictures, wasn't exactly champing at the bit to hand Gondry the reins.

"When I told the studio [about Michel], they looked at me like I was crazy," Moritz recalled. "I said, 'I'll put my reputation on the line for it.'"

Gondry's placement in the "Hornet" nest fits into a relatively recent strategy by various studios, in which art-house auteurs are handed big-budget event films in an effort to marry artistic credibility and mass appeal. Christopher Nolan is the poster boy for this sort of thing — he was best known for brooding, arty fare like 2000's "Memento" before landing the gig to resurrect Warner Bros.' "Batman" film franchise — a feat he capably accomplished to the tune of a combined $1.37 billion in box office in just two movies, "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight." (Nolan and Gondry share the same longtime agent, Dan Aloni.)

Warner Bros. similarly entrusted Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich," "Adaptation") to make a family-friendly $80-million adaptation of the epochal children's book " Where the Wild Things Are." Paramount tapped "Much Ado About Nothing" director Kenneth Branagh to film an adaptation of Marvel comics' "Thor." And Sony has enlisted Marc Webb — a music video hot-shot whose lone feature film is the quirky anti-romance "(500) Days of Summer" — to revive its "Spider-Man" franchise.

Still, Rogen surmises the director's hiring differently: "He story-boarded some action sequences, amazing stuff that was very visually impressive. But what sold us was, he just seemed to understand the tone we were going for and the characters we wanted to make."

Gondry arrived fully prepared to collaborate. But to hear him and Moritz tell it, "The Green Hornet" came with no shortage of creative compromises and consensus filmmaking with from-the-top-down management quite unlike anything the French filmmaker had experienced.

"Myself, Michel and Seth or Evan would disagree," Moritz said, "and whichever side had two out of three votes would win."

Added Gondry: "It's interesting, this phenomenon. When you have final cut, people don't confront you so directly. When they don't like it, they don't tell you. You only find out when it's too late. When you work with a big studio, they tell you right away when they don't like it."

Gondry's signature visual innovations do help elevate the material. In "Hornet's" fight sequences, the director developed "Kato-vision" — a space and time distortion technique in which every combatant on-screen appears to be throwing punches at different speeds. In a sequence that establishes Kato's martial arts bona fides, the director illustrated the character's cat-like speed via decidedly low-tech methods, having Chou bound across four sets of identical cars parked side by side rather than rely on digital trickery.

Nevertheless, Rogen said a certain "language barrier" resulted in him and Goldberg superseding Gondry's directorial authority. The two went into the editing bay after the filmmaker had submitted a version of the film to make their own revisions.

"We have a very specific joke style based on awed, semantical references," said Rogen. "There were times when Gondry didn't understand the jokes we were going for. We had to ask him if we could go in the editing room and spend some time looking for jokes that he didn't recognize as jokes at all. He was cool with it. It made the movie funnier."

Said Gondry: "It was back and forth. Sometimes they would be the chief and sometimes I would be the chief."

No matter what compromises he made, the filmmaker said he feels gratified at the end result and shares a sense of pride with his collaborators. He knows "Hornet" could be a game-changer for his standing in Hollywood.

"At the end of the day, we did this movie and we feel awesome about it," Gondry said. "We're adult enough to see that we went down this road and only what matters is on the screen. I don't think it's selling my soul to make a commercial movie."

chris.lee(*at*)latimes.com

Times staff writer Ben Fritz contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

[charp13]

Thanks to Doc, I watched some of the trailers and saw their "specific" joke style when they were singing to Gangster Paradise. I really want to "want" to see this movie. I got a Regal Cinema gift card and I'm dying to use it. I'll probably wait until someone else sees it and gives me their take on it.

[erin1789]

Only here for Waltz.



The rest of the film is...nothing.

[gnrbaby]

Because it's Gondry i can't write it off until I see it. However, what I have seen concerning this picture has been underwhelming.

[Monster Bob]

Being a fan of the old show/car/Barris/Hornet character, I was expecting total failure from this film, but this old guy kinda liked the newer trailers I've seen, especially the Black Beauty stuff. It looked cool enough.  I doubted the comedy angle would work for me, but I did laugh at a couple of the scenes. Over the top yet credible, kind of like the 1966 BATMAN series.

They did a rather dull MYTHBUSTERS on the new GREEN HORNET film, recreating stunts that the Black Beauty did in the film (it sounds better than it actually was).

About the gangsta thing...everything in the country strives to be ghetto anymore. Or so it seems. 

[judd]

It got a 41% on Rotten Tomatoes.  Doesn't look good.  I posted in the other GH thread, I saw the 3D trailer and I wasn't impressed with the 3D effect.  The Pirates 3D looked great but the Green Hornet didn't.  I don't think it worth the extra $ to see this in 3D.

[Scatter]

I'll pass.

[kklloo]

I'll pass.

    Ditto!