Trailer
Plot summary
Britt Reid, the estranged son of James Reid, takes over the Daily Sentinel after his father dies and rehires Kato, a mechanic with martial arts skills, as his assistant. The two become friends, and Britt talks Kato into fighting crime. Kato fits out an Imperial car with gadgets and weapons and names it the Black Beauty. Britt sets his sights on Benjamin Chudnofsky, a Russian mobster trying to bring the city's crime families under his command. Britt draws Chudnofsky's attention by having the Daily Sentinel print stories about his masked alter ego, the Green Hornet, presented as a villain. Lenore Case, the paper's researcher, invites Kato out after Britt asks her, and Britt grows jealous.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Green Hornet (2011)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- To play the Black Beauty, the production altered 29 Imperial Crown sedans from the 1964 to 1966 model years. Twenty-six were wrecked, three survived, and one was sold at a 2017 Barrett-Jackson auction for $29,700.
- Universal spent about $10 million developing The Green Hornet from 1992 to 2001 before putting it in turnaround, and Miramax then won the bidding with a deal approaching $3 million.
- Miramax planned a $35 million product-placement deal for the Black Beauty, a figure that would have tied the record set by Ford and MGM for James Bond's Die Another Day.
- Nicolas Cage was in talks to play the gangster villain Benjamin Chudnofsky but dropped out, saying he wanted more humanity in the character than Seth Rogen and Michel Gondry did.
- Stephen Chow signed to direct and co-star as Kato, calling it a dream come true, but dropped out as director in December 2008 over creative differences and later left the Kato role over scheduling conflicts.
- Van Williams, who played the Green Hornet in the 1960s TV series, was wanted for a cameo as a cemetery guard but declined the role.
- Producer Neal Moritz chose to shoot in Los Angeles over Michigan, New York and Louisiana, saying the creative positives outweighed the tax incentives offered elsewhere.
- Seth Rogen called the film a "nightmare" in a 2013 interview, saying Sony executives paid little attention to its most expensive portions and its inflated budget.
