Green Hornet: The Film That Wouldn't Die

Today it was announced that Columbia swooped in and picked up the rights to The Green Hornet. This film has went through so much in the past I'm surprised it hasn't been made four times already. It has had a long history but most recently Kevin Smith was on board to write a script and direct. Well he finished the script and backed out of the directors seat. So the movie lingered.

 

For awhile rumors flew about who would play the Green Hornet. It was said that everyone from Mark Wahlberg to George Clooney would don the mask. But it was doomed to never happen. Currently they don't have anybody on board to write, direct or act in the film. Producing however will be the job that Neal H. Moritz and Original Film will bear.

 

The Green Hornet made his debut on January 31, 1936 on WXYZ Detroit, the creation of the station's George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, who also created the Lone Ranger. The series, which ran until 1952 on the Mutual and NBC Blue networks, followed the adventures of Britt Reid, a bored playboy whose life is changed when he inherits his father's crusading newspaper, The Daily Sentinel. He saves the life of Kato, a Japanese man with incredible technical and martial-arts skills, who becomes Britt's closest ally -- and transforms Britt's car into the supercharged Black Beauty, which gives them an edge as they search for evidence to expose the city's underworld in the newspaper. When Britt and Kato witness a brutal mob hit, Britt invents his secret identity -- taking his name from his powerful car's defective horn. A skilled fighter and expert marksman, the Green Hornet uses two special, non-lethal guns to subdue criminals: one fires a potent knock-out gas while the other produces the "Hornet's Sting" -- an electric shock.

Following its successful run on radio, The Green Hornet ran in several comic books. In 1966, the character made the jump to the small screen for one season on the ABC television network, starring Van Williams as the Green Hornet and catapulting Bruce Lee, who played Kato, to stardom.