Seth Rogen opens up about The Green Hornet's production and praises the wild visual style director Michel Gondry brought to the project. Co-written by Rogen and creative partner Evan Goldberg, the film was based on the character of the same name originated in a 1930s radio program that carried over into movie serials, a TV show and comic books. The story centers on the arrogant heir to a newspaper publisher who inherits the company following his dad's death and teams up with his assistant Kato to become a masked crime fighting duo in Los Angeles.
Rogen starred in The Green Hornet as the titular her alongside Jay Chou as Kato, Cameron Diaz, Tom Wilkinson, Edward James Olmos, Christoph Waltz and David Harbour. Hitting theaters in 2011, the film saw a generally mixed reception from critics and underperformed at the box office, grossing over $227 million against an estimated $110-120 million budget. Plans for a proposed sequel were subsequently scrapped as producer Neil H. Moritz admitted to spending too much money on the first film, with Rogen noting that the studio gave little attention to the more expensive portions of its production.
While making a guest appearance on Corridor Crew's VFX Artists React, Rogen reflected on the production of The Green Hornet. Though noting its infamous troubled production and that he hasn't seen the film since its release, Rogen expressed having fun shooting The Green Hornet and praised Gondry and the visual effects team's work on the film's stylish sequences. See what Rogen said below:
"Gondry was great, I learned a lot from him, and though that movie had a troubled path in some ways, I still love Gondry and it was fun, there's some cool sh-t in it. [Kato running across the multiple cars] is a classic Gondry shot. We had a bunch of cars, there was like a few cars that he actually ran across. That was the thing was you would show up on set and it was like, 'Why are there four of the same cars parked beside each other?' and Gondry was like, 'I have an idea, it's going to be cool.' [laughs]
[Kato's fight] scene was really complicated, because the people are moving at different frame rates. That was actually one of the things Gondry pitched us when we first met on the movie was that Kato hits a guy and before that guy lands, he's hit another guy. It's done so well it almost looks real, it's a crazy effect. It was a lot of visual effects, building little parts of the jacket, etc.
[Chudnofsky sending goons to spread the word to hunt the Green Hornet] was cool, like how he did this was really interesting. It's a lot more simple than you'd think, every frame that splits they would literally freeze and he would continue the shot, go back to the freeze frame and start the next shot. I think literally was Gondry being like, 'FREEZE! GO!'"
The Green Hornet may have been flawed with its story and characters, but there's no denying the film is visually well-executed. One of the best elements of the film to hold up ten years after its release are certainly Kato's fight scenes, something that may appear cartoonish in moments but also showed innovation on Gondry's part to capture the power the character brought to his combat. With Rogen having co-written and executive produced the film with Goldberg, it's understandable he would have insight on the filming of scenes his character wasn't a part of and was involved with the hiring of Gondry for the film and his words of praise do point to the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind filmmaker being a good fit for the project.
It's also not too surprising to hear Rogen admit to have avoided watching The Green Hornet since its release given the film's troubled production and middling reception likely turned him off from revisiting it, even if he had a fun time making the film. Many stars have admitted similar sentiments over the years, one of the most notable being Ryan Reynolds avoiding revisiting Green Lantern aside from poking fun at it in Deadpool until electing to rewatch it in honor of the release of Zack Snyder's Justice League. With The Green Hornet currently celebrating its 10th anniversary and now fresh in Rogen's mind following his appearance on the Corridor Crew series, it will be interesting to see if he gives the film another shot in the near future.
Source: Corridor Crew