Two Films Derail, One Makes it Back to the Tracks

As film festival dust subsides, Hollywood websites are starting to turn their eyes back to projects closer to home. At the moment, there's some notable wreckage in the water, in the form of Seth Rogen's The Green Hornet picture. Splash Page has extensive coverage of the saga behind the movie, which looked like it was going to come together after years of being in the works, when it suddenly all fell apart. I for one, am somewhat relieved. Although I am somewhat of a novice when it comes to the original television show, I've seen enough it to know that Rogen's take on the film probably would have done it a great injustice. His previous work on film's like Pineapple Express and Superbad make me feel that it would have quickly degenerated into a comedic farce full of slapstick humor and bad jokes. The fact that "creative differences" lost the film its director, kung-fu star Stephen Chow, indicates to me that he wanted to take a more serious tact on the storyline. Whether the real story will come out over the next few days will be interesting to see.

Astro Boy was very nearly in the same straits as The Green Hornet, though because of financial problems rather than directorial problems. The three-dimensional animation adaptation of a Japanese anime that follows the quest of a robot trying to understand how to be human ran into financial difficulties when money that was supposed to be covering it through February never "materialized," forcing the studio to close operations until the money showed up. Executives behind the film are all assurances that the problem was minor and temporary and that the film is still a go for its fall 2009 release date.