2011's The Green Hornet certainly wasn't the worst film, nor was is a very good film, but Seth Rogen believes a perfect storm of events lead to the film's failure at the box office. The comedian/actor discussed in great length his discouragement about the film to Marc Maron's WTF podcast. During the interview Rogen pointed some of the blame on Michel Gondry ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"), claiming that the arthouse director wasn't up to the challenge of a big budget action film.
"It's weird what risks they're willing to take. The script is under great scrutiny, the lines, the characters, the dialogue, he should have a father, it should be this, it should be that. We just wanted to get it made and not waste all this time. And then things like the action sequences, which is really where all the money's getting spent, go under no scrutiny whatsoever. No one looks at it. No one looks at the pre-vis. No one looks at the storyboards. What we spent like literally $50 million dollars on, no one checks out. And that's whats crazy. The way the money was spent and the way the money is spent on a lot of these movies is crazy."
"When you look back on it, the things we spent the most money on were under the least amount of scrutiny of all the things in the movie. But overall, when you look back at the movies we've enjoyed making -- 'Superbad,' 'Pineapple Express,' 'Knocked Up,' this one 'This Is The End,' '50/50' was a lot of fun -- and it's the ones where they leave us alone and we can do whatever we want, we're in charge or our friends are in charge, and we are free to do whatever we want [that turn out the best]. There were so many times on 'Green Hornet' where we were like, 'It'd be funny if this happens,' and they'd be like, 'Yeah, well we can't do that cause it's R-rated.' I think we hoped we could be the guys who made the edgy PG-13 movie but we just couldn't really do it."
Seth also went on the
Doug Loves Movies podcast and sounded horrified about the notion of making a sequel.
"No, that'd be a nightmare. I would rather just not work for a year."
Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) is a slacker by day, party animal by night... until he finds a serious career that’s seriously cool: crime-fighting action hero. As the Green Hornet, he teams up with gadget wiz and martial arts master Kato (Jay Chou) to take down LA's underworld. Even Britt’s assistant Lenore (Cameron Diaz) doesn't suspect this mismatched pair is the masked duo busting the city's toughest thugs led by Chudnofsky (Academy Award® winner Christoph Waltz, 2010, Supporting Actor, Inglourious Basterds). With style, swagger and an arsenal of awesome gear, the Green Hornet and Kato are doing justice their way, making every mission a mix of over-the-top action and outrageous comedy.
THE GREEN HORNET (2011) was directed by Michel Gondry, from a script written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. The film starred: Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Christoph Waltz, Cameron Diaz, Edward James Olmos, and Tom Wilkinson. The film grossed $227 million at the worldwide box office.