Archive for the ‘Press’ Category
Netizens on citizen journalism website Stomp are furious over Green Hornet star, Seth Rogen’s comments about Singapore on American talk show, The Conan O’Brien show.
The 28-year-old Canadian called Singapore a ‘frightening place’ and said ‘no one who lives there has ever voted’.
68 per cent of Stomp readers expressed enrage on the mood meter. Stomp reader Kato had some harsh words for him: ‘Seth has proven how ignorant some people from other countries are. I don’t know why people from certain parts of the world like to make fun of Asian countries, as if we are backward, when many of us are more intellectual and more sophisticated than them.’
On the other hand, Stomp reader manlyhug tried to ease the tension by saying: ‘He was just joking. It is a late night talk show, you are supposed to joke while on it.’
Going from zero to hero in his latest American blockbuster, The Green Hornet, Seth Rogen plays a masked vigilante who’s in the ass-kicking business for its fame more than anything else. But he’s no typical world-saving hero. Instead Seth has stayed true and steadfast to his bumbling onscreen (and off-screen) persona by channeling his inner goofball to The Green Hornet as a good-for-nothing heir of a media empire.
Taking a stab at his debut superhero gig, Seth “never thought anyone would let him do it” and mused, “So there are moments in the movie where I can’t believe it’s actually me. Uh, but then I do something stupid and I can’t believe it’s actually me (laughs).
“Considering my superhero is not that good at it, it was a little humbling I guess. It was a lot of fun. I guess to get to see yourself just wearing that outfit is pretty awesome,” said Seth who was in town for The Green Hornet’s promotional activities with director Michel Gondry and co-actor Jay Chou.
“But at no point would I watch the movie and go ‘Man, I wished I was cooler’. I’m happy for Jay to look cool. I would be uncomfortable looking cool.”
Giving a slight shrug, the actor quipped, “I don’t know. To me, that’s just not what I’m good at. I think I’m much better at being goofy and stupid,” he chortled, clearly tickled by his own honesty.
Jason Segel insists he, Seth Rogen and James Franco have filmmaker Judd Apatow’s defiant attitude to thank for their fame – because he was determined to turn them into stars after TV show Freaks And Geeks was cancelled.
Apatow was upset when the cult show was axed and threatened to show TV bosses just what talent they had let slip through their fingers – by turning the members of his cast into big stars.
Segel explains, “I met Judd at the right time and got really lucky. I can boil it down to that! When Freaks and Geeks got cancelled Judd got pissed and was like, ‘These guys are good and I’ll tell you what; I’m gonna show you guys how dumb you are by making each one of these guys stars.’
“He had no reason besides that. It’s not like Seth and I are screaming to be leading men. Franco obviously was gonna be fine, but Seth and I, it wouldn’t have been an easy road for us, or Jonah (Hill). But Judd decided to prove to the studios that they were wrong. It was just Judd having a Count of Monte Cristo style reaction to being cancelled.”
Six years have passed since we’ve seen the smooth moves of teen geek heartthrob Napoleon Dynamite. But 20th Century Fox is bringing the character back in all of his nun-chuck and computer-hacking glory with an all-new animated series arriving next year.
With director and co-writer Jared Hess executive producing the show and Jon Heder and other actors returning to reprise their beloved characters, we’re absolutely excited to see what the series has to offer — so much so that we’re already thinking about other movies that would make for great cartoon shows!
Check out some of our suggestions for movies-turned-cartoon:
“Superbad”
Two words: more McLovin. The world has not had enough of Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s filthy-mouthed teen hero, nor has it had its fill of the sexually-charged exploits of social outcasts Seth and Evan. With Michael Cera and Jonah Hill on board — not to mention occasional cameos from Seth Rogen and Bill Hader — a “Superbad” cartoon show would be super good.
Check the full suggested list: www.moviesblog.mtv.com
When asked for probably the 4,543rd time about how he got into shape to play a superhero, Seth Rogen didn’t even try to bring the funny.
“I dieted a little and worked out. It’s an answer that’s so boring, I’m not even going to try and make it interesting,” Rogen said while speaking before a roomful of reporters about “The Green Hornet” at Comic-Con International: San Diego. Rogen is one of the funniest guys in Hollywood in any kind of interview setting, but he had bigger fish to fry at that point than poking fun at his workout routine.
His main objective at Comic-Con was to reverse the pessimism surrounding the long-in-the-works ‘Hornet’ and get people excited about seeing a film he’s devoted more than three years of his life to developing as star, co-writer and executive producer.
“The Green Hornet” movie has endured more adversity than the character ever faced in the radio shows, film serials, TV programs and comic books he’s starred in since he was created, back in the 1930s, by George Trendle and Fran Striker.
First came all the changes in the cast and crew list. Stephen Chow was first onboard to direct and co-star, but eventually was replaced in the director’s chair by Michel Gondry. Nicholas Cage was cast as the villain for about five minutes before he left and Christoph Waltz was tapped for the role.
The script reportedly underwent numerous rewrites, and the film’s release date kept getting pushed back. It’s now locked in for January 2011, not the greatest indicator of studio confidence, but at least it’s a firm date. Getting shuffled across the calendar though, hurt “The Green Hornet” in the arena of public perception. The movie also appears to have been damaged as much by plain bad timing more than anything else.
“I had no idea who the Green Hornet was,” admitted Waltz, the Academy Award-winning scene-stealer from ‘Inglorious Basterds.’ “I am not a comics-educated person.”
The actor is a well-known comic book aficionado, who in a recent interview with the L.A. Times, admitted he’s more of a Marvel guy than a DC fan.
“I’m at the comic book shop just about every week. I read very few books without pictures of men in very tight clothes,” he said. “It’s weird that everybody knows who Deadpool is [now]. It’s weird that everyone’s talking about the things me and my friends talk about,” he said. “But it’s cool, and its fun that we’re able to participate in it.”
That chance to finally do a movie about capes was ultimately what drew Rogen and Goldberg, his longtime writing partner, to the Hornet’s nest. In “The Green Hornet,” Rogen plays Britt Reid, a carefree rich party-boy who gets a rude awakening when his wealthy newspaper mogul father dies. He gets inspired to do something more than just go clubbing, so he decides to use his financial resources to fight crime. The clips screened in San Diego displayed a markedly lighter tone than the typical superhero movie. It’s not camp or parody, as Gondry pointed out. Just a different take on the genre, which was necessitated by the fact that its star happens to be a very funny guy.
“It became very clear [early on] that there was no way this could be a serious movie. The Green Hornet isn’t even that dark a character,” Rogen noted. “His parents weren’t murdered. He’s more of a lighter character. It was more about capturing the fun of being a superhero. We wanted to write a superhero film and felt Green Hornet and Kato’s relationship was interesting,” he said.
Adding to the lighthearted tone is the fact that, despite the weight loss, Rogen isn’t exactly the first person you think of to star in a superhero movie.
”I think [co-star] Cameron Diaz could kick the s&*! out of me. She could whoop my ass pretty good,” said Rogen, who aside from a few scenes in the stoner action-comedy “Pineapple Express,” has never done action film work before.
“The Green Hornet” is not a drug comedy, but star and co-writer Seth Rogen knows he will have to remind people of that again and again between now and the film’s January release.
“It might be the only movie we have without any explicit pot references,” Rogen said, referring to himself and writing partner Evan Goldberg, a tandem that has given the world the bong-hit cinema of “Superbad” and “The Pineapple Express.” This film’s emerald title led to a lot of hemp wisecracks from the cast and crew.
“Yes, there were a lot of jokes flying around the set about the name of the movie — jokes that the studio begs me not to make. But I will.” Rogen, with a wink, added that his masked man and Kato might go the Cheech and Chong route for “Green Hornet 2.” “If they let us do an R-rated sequel, maybe we can go there: ‘The Greener Hornet.’“
Evan Goldberg, the writing partner of Superbad actor Seth Rogen, has revealed that the team behind Superbad and Pineapple Express are set for a host of new projects. According to the writer, new films include a “top secret super project” called Sausage Party.
“I can tell you no more….but it involves Seth [Rogen] and Jonah [Hill] who star, and Conrad Vernon (voice actor from Monsters Vs. Aliens and Shrek Forever After) and Mark Osborne (director of Kung Fu Panda) are involved,” Goldberg told The Playlist.
He added: “We’ve written that, we’ve finished and are going out to studios with now. We’re very passionate about it. Sausage Party is very special to us.”
Goldberg also explained Rogen is also hoping to get his 2007 short film, Jay And Seth vs The Apocalypse, made into a feature film, starring The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’s Jay Baruchel. (Source)
The catty back-and-forth between Seth Rogen and Entourage executive producer Doug Ellin is more interesting than anything that has happened on the show in a very long time. In an interview with TV Guide, Ellin claims that he harbors no ill will toward the actor, who told GQ in 2008 that Entourage wasn’t funny. In fact, Ellin says he originally considered Rogen for the part of Turtle.
“I’m a fan of Rogen’s,” Ellin said, “I had seen him in Undeclared, and I said to our casting director, ‘There’s a Midwestern kind of guy who I think would be funny for this show.’ But then we found Jerry [Ferrara, who plays Turtle], so we went that way.”
As for the Turtle quip in a 2009 episode that Rogen’s “ugliness is oddly fascinating” (which resulted in Rogen calling Ellin a “moron” and “asshole”), Ellin said that, despite his appreciation for the actor, he couldn’t let Rogen completely off the hook for his GQ comment: “If he’s going to say the show sucks, I’m going to say he’s ugly,” Ellin explained. Ellin’s contention he has no problem with Rogen is also a bit hard to take considering he has now forever linked the actor to a character Rogen went out of his way to bash in the episode of The Simpsons he wrote. (Source)
Giving Michel Gondry a big movie to direct was an inspired choice. That he’s making an adaptation of a comic book and old t.v. show is even more impressive. The Green Hornet stars Seth Rogen, Christoph Waltz and Cameron Diaz. As with all major releases there’s been rumours and talk of studio strife and technology du jour, 3D. Latino Review got Gondry to air his thoughts on the forthcoming movie and went on the defensive:
“If the film is not good, the studio will stop paying any money… Believe me, if they did not think the movie would be great they would stop spending any money on it. It’s how big corporations work. They don’t spend money to save a project, they spend money when they think they’re going to get more money back.”
The worst thing that can happen, well there’s plenty of things, but the most salient would be if the film resembles a smothered version of what a Michel Gondry could/should be, meaning: insane, beautiful and highly inventive work.
Gondry also pointed out it was not studio pressure to film in 3D, but the grand plan all along. The idea of 3D and Michel Gondry meeting in a big Hollywood flick is very exciting (potentially). We’ll find out when The Green Hornet is released later this year. (Source)
Speaking at the South by Southwest film festival “The Green Hornet” director, Michel Gondry previewed his vision for The Green Hornet, and remarked that while it would be more conventional than some of his quirkier past efforts such as Be Kind Rewind, it would still offer his trademark style.
“I think the way the action unfolds, there is a sort of sense of geometry in the dynamics in the scenes,” Gondry told SCI FI Wire in an exclusive interview on Sunday. “I think that corresponds pretty much to my style.”
But when elaborating on his vision, Gondry took exception to those who have been criticizing him for veering from early source material, some of which can be legitimately found in ‘Green Hornet’ comics dating back to the ’40s…which Gondry apparently believes don’t exist. According to the director, who seems to hold the opinion that the original radio series is the only legitimate basis for the movie, there’s really no comic-book for the character at all.
“Let’s set the record straight,” Gondry said. “There is no comic book of the Green Hornet, so I don’t want people to tell me, ‘You didn’t respect the comic book,’ because I dare them to show me the comic book. I know that Kevin Smith did one lately. It’s probably great, but that’s his vision. There’s no right to claim Green Hornet is a comic-book figure. It’s a radio show to start with, and … a TV show from the ’60s, so that’s what there is. If people think we owe to follow the rule of a comic book, there is no comic book of The Green Hornet, so f–k that. I’m sorry, but I don’t owe anything to any aficionado of the comic book. I’m doing a film.




The Green Hornet
Paul
Kung Fu Panda: Kaboom of Doom
50/50









