'The Green Hornet' is returning to cinema screens.
Gavin O'Connor
Paramount and Chernin Entertainment have snapped up the rights to the character and his alter ego Britt Reid after Sony let them go, and director Gavin O'Connor is planning a more serious take on the franchise than its last outing, 2011 action comedy 'The Green Hornet' which starred Seth Rogen in the title role.
The filmmaker admitted bringing Reid and his sidekick Kato to life is a long-held dream.
He told Deadline: "I've been wanting to make this movie - and create this franchise - since I've wanted to make movies.
"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.
"And he was a criminal - in the eyes of the law - and in the eyes of the criminal world. So all this felt real to me.
"Imagine climbing to the top of the Himalayas, or Mount Everest, or K2 over and over again and no one ever knew? You can never tell anybody. That's the life of Britt and Kato. What they do, they can never say. They don't take credit for anything."
The filmmaker already has a strong vision for the movie - which will be written by Sean O'Keefe - and describes it as "Batman upside down" with influences from the Bourne franchise and 'American Sniper'.
He added: "'The Green Hornet' is ultimately a film about self-discovery.
"When we meet Britt Reid he's lost faith in the system. Lost faith in service. In institutions. If that's the way the world works, that's what the world's going to get. He's a man at war with himself. A secret war of self that's connected to the absence of his father. It's the dragon that's lived with him that he needs to slay.
"And the journey he goes on to become 'The Green Hornet' is the dramatisation of it, and becomes Britt's true self.
"I think of this film as Batman upside down meets Bourne inside out by way of Chris Kyle. He's the anti-Bruce Wayne. His struggle: Is he a saviour or a destroyer?
"Britt made money doing bad things, but moving forward he's making no money doing good things.
"He must realise his destiny as a protector and force of justice by becoming the last thing he thought he'd ever become: his father's son. Which makes him a modern Hamlet. By uncovering his past, and the truth of his father, Britt unlocks the future."
Tagged in Seth Rogen