Seth Rogen Tagged Articles at Cinematical

No, that's not Seth Rogen looking like someone who decided at the last minute to be the Riddler for Halloween. It's presumably his stuntman. But it is our first good look at Rogen's costume for The Green Hornet, which has started shooting in Los Angeles. The picture is from a short video posted at Splash News Online, filmed paparazzi-style from behind the barricades where a stunt sequence was being shot. There's an explosion, and a bulldozer is dropped on a car, so that's pretty exciting.

Michel Gondry is directing the film, which is scheduled for a December 2010 release, and the screenplay is by Rogen and his old writing buddy Evan Goldberg. Jay Chou plays Kato, the Hornet's butler and chauffeur; Cameron Diaz plays a love interest; Christoph Waltz (who you loved in Inglourious Basterds) plays a villain; and Edward James Olmos plays a newspaper reporter trying to unmask the Hornet (because for sure you can't tell who a guy really is when he's wearing a mask that covers his eyes).

The big question, though: What do we think of the costume? Do hardcore Green Hornet fans -- I assume there are hardcore Green Hornet fans -- approve? Is this the look of a legitimate crime fighter?

The greatest thing about last night's premiere episode of The Simpsons was just how current and fanboy-ish it was, and that's because it was written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Superbad), the former of which also voiced the character of Homer's Hollywood trainer. But perhaps the best part of the episode came when Rogen -- who's had a long-standing feud with the gang from Entourage -- used his character to take another jab at the HBO show after they used him as the punching bag for a storyline earlier this season.

Simpsons Spoiler Warning

The joke came right at the end of the episode when Homer is yelling at his Hollywood trainer (voiced by Rogen) for ditching him, thus nudging Homer off his diet and back on the chubby wagon -- a move that ultimately ruined the superhero movie he was starring in. So when Homer demands to know who his trainer left him for, Rogen's character admits it was Turtle from Entourage. He then apologizes to Homer and offers him to train with Turtle too so they can both lose the weight. Turtle, for those who remember the episode, was the one who helped instigate the "Why would anyone sleep with Seth Rogen?" argument that caused quite the stir back in July.

After the episode, Rogen told E! that the Entourage guys are "a**holes" and that Entourage creator Doug Ellin was a "moron". But the feud goes back even further because Rogen pitched an Entourage-type show long ago, and HBO turned it down only to then bring on Entourage. So, yeah, Rogen -- the clever bastard that he is -- decided to do what every true fanboy wished they could do: He used The Simpsons to get back at his Entourage bully. And I thought it was pretty awesome ...

Nicolas Cage told reporters at the Toronto International Film Festival that he decided to drop out of Michel Gondry's adaptation of The Green Hornet because he wasn't satisfied by the way his character, the Green Hornet's nemesis Chudnofsky, was written. According to Cage, the character lacked "humanity" and any sort of background as to why he was a bad guy, and that he "wasn't interested in just being just a straight-up bad guy who was killing people willy-nilly."

It's a bit hard to take Cage's explanation seriously, since he was at the festival to promote his new movie, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, directed by Werner Herzog. As Eugene Novikov wrote in his review of the movie, Cage's character is the self-serious yet off-the-wall type we've come to expect from the actor.

Bad Lieutenant has several of the year's highlights, including a tour de force in which Lieutenant McDonagh stops a pair of youngsters on their way home from a club, confiscates their drugs, snorts them, and has sex with the girl while forcing the guy to watch. (You have to imagine this performed in a full-on Nic Cage-ean fury for the full effect.) He's one bad Lieutenant indeed, though the movie makes clear that he has an honest streak: he'll pocket all the dope he can, but -- unlike his partner, played by Val Kilmer -- he stops short at, say, murdering a drug dealer in "self-defense" to pocket his money.

He also points a gun at a grandmother, smokes crack, and hallucinates an iguana. Let's not forget his tour de force of beating up women in the absolutely unnecessary remake of The Wicker Man. But a comic book character bad guy -- no way!

Instead, Christoph Waltz from Inglourious Basterds will be taking over. Ironically enough, Waltz's ability to bring an eerie humanity to his character Col. Hans Landa (aka the Jew Hunter) won him the Best Actor award at Cannes and has Oscar watchers already placing bets on a Supporting Actor nomination. Although I'll miss Nic Cage's hysterical outbursts in The Green Hornet, chances are good that Waltz will be a better baddie.

When Nicolas Cage stepped down as the villain of Michel Gondry's The Green Hornet, we and others started kicking around names of those actors that we'd most like to see become the bad guy opposite Seth Rogen's masked crime-fighter, and if Deadline Hollywood's Nikki Finke is to be believed -- and for once, I hope that she is -- the vacancy left by Cage will be filled by none other than the AICN-suggested Christoph Waltz.

The 52-year-old Austrian actor is best known for his scene-stealing turn as Col. Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, for which he won the Best Actor award at this year's Cannes Film Festival and for which he's a likely contender for this year's Best Supporting Actor Oscar. That was a villainous performance both fierce and playful, which sounds like just the thing that a Michel Gondry-helmed serial-based action-comedy. (And at this moment, isn't it fitting how much more interesting he and we might find this rumor to be over facts?)

If this is true and the shoot goes according to schedule, we should be looking to see The Green Hornet in theaters around December of 2010.

It really seems like Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen's Green Hornet is cursed, doesn't it? We've all followed the ups and downs of the production and just when it seemed like we were out of the woods, now we're short one villain. Earlier reports had Nicolas Cage making an appearance as an unnamed villain in the action comedy, but according to The Hollywood Reporter's Heatvision blog, Cage has officially left the production. I can only assume that Cage left hornet to work on the recently announced Drive Angry and the Hungry Rabbit Jumps.

Not much was known about what Goldberg and Rogen had planned for their Hornet's baddie, and over the years The Green Hornet has fought everyone from bootleggers to the Axis of Evil and communists. But in some of the earlier incarnations of the Hornet, his major villains were Mr. X, a shadowy crime figure, and Oliver Perry, a sleazy P.I. who was constantly threatening to 'unmask' our hero. No one knew for sure who Cage was going to play, and frankly I think he could have pulled off either role, but it's not like he's the only actor who could. Luckily for Columbia, Gondry had yet to shoot any footage with Cage, so when they find his replacement, they can start from scratch.

That said, I thought it would be fun to engage in a little casting wish-fulfillment and I've got five actors who I think can pick up where Cage left off. Now, some of the actors might not be who you would expect to show up in a Seth Rogen movie, but hey, this is my fantasy casting pool, so why not aim for the top?

After the jump: my picks for a brand new bad guy...

It's been such a long, winding battlefield of a road for this millennium's take on The Green Hornet that it's surprising that the project has gone anywhere at all. Nevertheless, after all the pre-production fuss, getting our official Kato, a new Christmas-season release date, and a big Tron battle, we're finally getting photos from the set, courtesy of Just Jared.

Yes, that photo to the right of Cameron Diaz and a parasol isn't the most exciting of shots, but the rest might be quite spoilerific. So, of course, quit reading if you want to stay in the dark about Hornet goings-on. Anyhow, Diaz's Lenore Case and Seth Rogen's Britt Reid are holding an outdoor press conference when things take a turn for the bloody -- someone shoots Reid in the left shoulder. As things become chaotic, Case tries to get him in the nearby car, whilst Reid grimaces and the camera people go nuts to get the best shot. (There's a ton of shots over at JJ.)

Oh, how will this all turn out? It should help that the release date moved farther away from Iron Man, because good or bad, it's hard to release a second millionaire business man/tough crime fighter only a few months after everyone descends upon Iron Man. But will it be enough?

There are always a couple of titles that get pushed at Comic-Con, only to have those first impressions fade from memory as their opening gets shoved further and further back. Case in point: Whiteout, which showed up at San Diego in 2007, only to find itself a home next month -- over two years after.

Now, if Box Office Mojo is to be believed (and they're pretty reliable), Seth Rogen and Michel Gondry's The Green Hornet will now debut over a year after making a modest presentation at this past Comic-Con, having been bumped back from next July to the following December for reasons unknown.

Sure, it could be more time for effects work (the alibi given for 2012's similar shift this year), or maybe Sony didn't relish the chance to open a crime-fighting action-comedy opposite a Predator(s) reboot and a mere week before the already anticipated Inception. At any rate (or date, rather), let's just hope that it doesn't turn out to be nearly as goofy and stylized as last winter's The Spirit first revealed itself to be at -- you guessed it -- Comic-Con.

Have you stopped to realize James McAvoy hasn't done a movie since Wanted? I know, I can't quite believe it either since he was one of those names attached to everything last year. But he's been taking it easy and why shouldn't he? All that "curve the bullet" stuff made everyone dizzy.

Happily though, the young Scottish turk is back, and he's stretching his comedic chops this time around which is a great relief for those of us still reeling from Atonement. According to Variety, McAvoy is teaming up with Seth Rogen for the illness driven comedy I'm With Cancer. Based on screenwriter Will Reiser's semi-autobiographical novel, Cancer centers on a 25 year old who discovers he has cancer. He spends several years battling and overcoming the disease, so thankfully you won't need to bring too much Kleenex with you. You'll just need enough to wipe up the happy tears.

McAvoy will take the lead Reiser-inspired role, and Rogen will take the backseat, though he's also on board as a producer alongside his pal Evan Goldberg. Nicole Holofcener will direct, and Reiser has penned the screenplay. The film is set to begin shooting this winter and is apparently looking to change the title which I think is a shame. What's catchier than I'm With Cancer? Keep that one, guys. It sounds as upbeat as the story.

It looks like the cast for The Green Hornet is complete once more, and the masked man has a new Kato. Columbia Pictures announced that Jay Chou has been cast as the Hornet's trusty mechanic / ass kicker, replacing Stephen Chow . This will be his first American film, though audiences might remember him from The Curse of the Golden Flower or Kung Fu Dunk.

Chou is a superstar in Taiwan, and has an exhaustive resume as a singer, producer, actor, director, and writer. There's not much he hasn't done ... except martial arts. Unless his biography is wrong, he has no martial art experience, putting him right in line with that open casting call that was so widely reported. Will this mean Kato will take a bit of a backseat to the Hornet, and not be a powerhouse like Bruce Lee?

His acting has received very poor reviews from Asian critics, but his performance in Curse was complimented by American critics, so Hornet will be quite a test for him. I honestly can't remember a single thing about Golden Flower other than its epic and blinding color scheme, so I can't judge whether or not he'll be a good Kato. Nothing about the pre-production of Seth Rogen's Hornet has met expectations good or bad (Nicolas Cage as the villain?), and the project continues to feel like one giant exercise in Wait and See.

Are you a man or a woman? That may be the essential reason why you either loved or hated Judd Apatow's Funny People, starring Adam Sandler as a comedian facing a mid-life crisis. Marketing research firm CinemaScore says that men graded the movie B+ but women only granted it C+. As reported by Los Angeles Times, that translates into: "men generally liked it ... most women did not."

Which is puzzling to me, because, as I was watching it (alone again, naturally), it didn't strike me as the kind of movie that might polarize the sexes. Now, I can understand the overall audience being smaller than something like the latest Harry Potter. Our own Eugene Novikov surmised as much in his box office summary, pointing out that attempting to market the film "as a typical Adam Sandler comedy was quixotic, and as another laugh riot from the Apatow factory only marginally less so." Yet, I would have anticipated that men and women who had seen Apatow's earlier directorial efforts, The 40-Year Old-Virgin and Knocked Up -- or any of the films of Adam Sandler -- would have a good idea what to expect, as far as the level of raunch and a view of women as generally cranky and more than a little scary. Did Funny People go too far?

Enlighten us, please. Take our poll of the sexes and let us know: Why did you like Funny People? Why didn't you like Funny People? And did you fight about it on the way home? Feel free to elaborate in the comments section.