Why The Green Hornet Will Never Be Made: A Diatribe.

This has been a long time coming.

While I was growing up, there wasn't an internet (at least not one I could access without credentials from the DOD). Cable was around, but it didn't come to my town until I was in 4th or 5th grade - maybe even 6th. I don't remember. Most of the news about the world of movies, television, comic books, and any cool shit in general came from magazines. My local drug store had a decent comic and magazine rack, and one day, I found a magazine called Starlog. It was a magazine that covered the world of science fiction – movies, television, books, models and collectibles. To think there was a group of people out there that actually cared enough about all the stuff I loved to put a magazine together about it! It was incredible!

Most of the time, Moose Drug carried Starlog, but every once in a while, they just wouldn't get it in. Small town businesses are like that - they kinda just have to take whatever the distributor has and go with it. On those occasions that they didn't get that month's issue, my Mom would take me into Concord, the next-biggest town over from Mount Pleasant. Concord had a mall, and at that mall was a Waldenbooks. They had a great magazine rack, and I could always find Starlog there - and sometimes, I could find other cool magazines as well.

One of those other magazines was Comics Scene (which just so happened to be a subsidiary of Starlog), a rag dedicated to comic book stuff. There wasn't a comic book movie coming out every month back in the 1980s, so most of the news in this magazine was speculation. The mag was essentially geek food-for-thought; a smorgasbord of wouldn't it be cools - ideas about how to bring certain characters to life on both the big and small screens.

Around 1988, news started pouring in about Tim Burton's big-screen version of Batman. Comics Scene was THE PLACE to check out photos of Michael Keaton in-costume, early looks at the Batmobile, and all the gadgets the Dark Knight would employ in his quest to conquer crime in Gotham City.

After the movie came out, it was a smashing success - even if the true fanboys such as myself were disappointed in the final product (but that's another story). Overnight, Hollywood began the scramble to find the next big comic property, and finally, Comics Scene had some real news to report.

At the back of each issue, there was a list of properties currently in-development. One of those properties was The Green Hornet. I had never heard of this alleged comic book character, so I looked into it. I found out that it was a tv show back in the '60s, a film serial in the '40s, and a radio program even back before that. Okay, I thought - so where are they taking it?

Here's the thing. It was a tv show in the '60s, yet my father, who sucked up just about every television show that came down the pike back then, could hardly remember it. I was just over at his house, sucking down Red Bull and vodkas, listening to YouTube clips of Howard Stern's guys prank radio swap & shops. We're tight like that.

"Do you remember The Green Hornet?" I asked him.

"No," he replied. "I mean yeah - I remember it, but it was just kind of there. It didn't really make an impact. I remember it was a show. Other than that, I can't tell you jack."

"So, it wasn't like a big thing," continuing my line of questioning, "Not like a Batman or Superman type of thing."

"Not even remotely," he replied. "I remember it existed, but other than that, you're on your own."

Now let me take a minute to qualify my father. In the early 1980s, he went out and bought our first VCR. It was a 4-head Fisher front-loader – a pretty good piece of hardware at the time. The very first thing this guy did was record every episode of the George Reeves Superman series. I don’t remember what channel it was coming on at the time, but it was on somewhere, and he taped every damn one of them. He’s still got the tapes, and breaks them out to show my kids every chance he gets. The man is a serious Superman fan.

He couldn’t give a flip about The Green Hornet. I’m telling you – it never made an impact in small-town America. Maybe there’s a big city, blue state contingent of Green Hornet fans, but if there is, I haven’t heard of them. Neither has my Dad. Oh sure – you can go on the web and find a fan site for just about everything, and the Green Hornet is no exception. For example:

Exhibit A: The official website of the Green Hornet.

Exhibit B: The Green Hornet World Wide Web page.

Exhibit C: There ain’t one.

The Green Hornet wasn't Superman popular. Hell, it wasn't even Time Tunnel popular. This show had zilch impact on the cultural zeitgeist. Go ahead and tell me I'm full of crap; I don't care. The Green Hornet didn't do anything. Maybe - maybe it had an impact while it was a radio show - maybe. I can’t verify that – all the people who might’ve listened to it are dead now. The film serials? I don’t know. Most of them are dead, too. The rest? They simply don’t give a damn.

Here's the deal: somewhere in Hollywood, there's a really, really old producer who's got his finger in the Green Hornet pie. Somehow, someway, this old coot is connected to the property, and as far out of step with reality as this guy is, he still seems to think that there's money to be made off this character/property. At the same time, this faceless producer has pictures and/or video of various directors, writers and stars locked in very, very compromising positions. My theory is this; this old goat of a producer has been blackmailing rising stars into committing to starring in The Green Hornet for the past two decades. As these stars rise, they make enough money to pay off this old rascal and get out of this inevitable disaster. Here’s a timeline of the movie’s development to illustrate my theory:

Actually, there isn't a timeline. No one on the internet gives enough of a squirt to put one together. For that matter, neither do I. If I knew anything about it, I might take the time, but the fact is, I simply don’t know – I’ve never seen it. The movie serials are available via Netflix, but I’ve never been a big fan of that kind of thing. The tv show isn’t available on dvd - at least, I can't find it. I think there are some bootleg dvds out there, but I’m not putting forth the effort to chase ‘em down. I’m just not that into it.

The farthest back I can go via the internet is sometime during the mid-1990s. George Clooney was associated with the project then, right before he did Batman and Robin. Now – as much crap as I’ve given The Green Hornet over the past couple thousand words, maybe Clooney should have done that one instead of the cinematic abortion that was B&R – but he didn’t. In the end, it didn't hurt him too badly. Other names associated with the project over the years have been Mark Wahlberg, Jake Gyllenhaal, Kevin Smith, Sam Hamm, Steven Chow, Chow Yun-Fat, Chris McQuarrie, and a slew of others.

I wish I could remember all those names tied to the project those many years ago in the pages of Comics Scene, but I just can’t. I simply recall reading about the project, year after year, and seeing absolutely nothing happen with it. It became a joke to me; I didn’t have any friends throughout middle or high school that gave a shit about comics – so it was a private, personal joke. Month after month, I’d flip to the back of the magazine, and month after month, I’d see different names associated with the film. Eventually, towards the end of Comics Scene’s life cycle, the listing simply read Green Hornet: TBA.

Sometime in 2007, the news hit that Seth Rogen, of all people, was signing on to play The Green Hornet. Now let me set you all straight: I’m a Seth Rogen fan. I love the guy. I’ve got absolutely nothing against him. But that old coot producer whose existence I theorized? I’ve got a bad feeling he’s got the goods on Rogen. We all know that Seth likes the wacky weed, and every now and then, that leads to trouble. Anyone see Pineapple Express? That stuff can really happen, you know - and in Rogen’s case, it must have. He pulled some crazy stunt, someone caught it on video, and it ended up in the hands of that crazy old bastard that’s hellbent on getting The Green Hornet back in the public eye. Hell – it’s even got a release date of July 9, 2010! That is exactly ONE YEAR FROM TODAY.

Guys – we all know how long it takes to get a film together, especially a big budget one. It ain’t gonna happen.

Three hours ago, Entertainment Weekly announced that Cameron Diaz is “considering” an offer as the female lead in The Green Hornet. What this actually means is that she’s let loose the hounds, and she’s trying to track down the photographic evidence. As soon as she gets her hands on the proof (that – or she meets the ransom demands of Old Coot), she’s off the flick. Guaranteed.

It’s sheer serendipity that I decided to vent my decades-long perplexity tonight. I hadn’t seen the Diaz story, and I didn’t know that it happened to be exactly one year TO THE DATE until the The Green Hornet's announced release. I swear to Christ, it’s a complete coincidence.

Nevertheless, you take it to the bank: The Green Hornet, as a feature film, will never see the light of day. I’ve been carelessly following its development since the late 1980s, and since then, nothing’s changed.

NOTHING.

(Don't take this too seriously: obviously, the facts that I've never been able to catch an episode of The Green Hornet and my father's disinterest in the show hardly support a thesis that states the movie will never be made. All that proves is that I talk out of my rear end, and my Dad's a really big Superman nut. It's just a completely pointless memory I've had for twenty years that manifested into a written statement out of sheer, unadulterated boredom. The fact that I didn't even mention Bruce Lee should be proof enough that the article is in jest, but just in case, let this disclaimer serve as proof that I have nothing against The Green Hornet or anyone that's ever been associated with it. I still don't think it'll ever happen, but I also thought that William Shatner would actually end up in the new Star Trek film, too. Carnac The Magnificent I ain't.)