Principal photography began last week on Seth Rogen’s remake of the pulp hero, The Green Hornet and already set pics have started to leak out.  Featuring Rogen, Cameron Diaz, Jay Chou and visionary director Michel Gondry.

Superherohype has the photos, which show Diaz and Rogen hosting a press conference where Rogen’s character, Britt Reid, is seemingly shot, but that’s not the best part: there is a great picture of Kato.  We think its the stunt double.  Regardless, it looks GREAT.

In other Green Hornet news, the release on Dec. 17, 2010 is going to have some company: Tron Legacy, according to Variety.  Expect some box office fireworks.

Casting problems continue for the movie, with Nicolas Cage departing the movie after contract negotiations didn’t get up to his price tag.  Comic Book Resources reports that none of the shooting features the character Cage was slated to play, but Columbia is apparently actively searching for a replacement, but no word yet on whether they are looking to replace Cage with another A-list actor. The production already stars the aforementioned Diaz, Rogen, Taiwanese superstar Jay Chou, but also Tom Wilkinson and Edward James Olmos.

Usually casting problems, and this movie has been rife with them, is a sign of poor product but I simply don’t see how that can be. Rogen and writing partner Evan Goldberg are, in my opinion, stellar writers having contributed to “Freaks and Geeks” when they were 16,  and written episodes of “Da Ali G Show”.  Even though Judd Apatow gets a lot of credit for shepherding in their writing careers, “Superbad” and “Pineapple Express” are far more entertaining than anything that Apatow has written/directed.  Add visionary director Michel Gondry to this mix and I genuinely think this movie is going to be something else.  What that “else” is? Well, we’ll see.

• “The Usual Suspects” writer Christopher McQuarrie said he will be writing “Wolverine 2″.  Apparently, the Oscar winning screen writer helped on the last film’s script but declined credit.
• McQuarrie’s collaborator on “The Usual Suspects” (Bryan Singer) may direct a Battlestar Galactica film remake.  File this under why does this need to exist?
• X-Men killer Brett Ratner wants “Twilight” star Robert Pattinson in his “Youngblood” movie.  Hahahaha, go on. Take him. Not like I’m going to see it anyway.
• Cameron Diaz says her character in Seth Rogen’s “The Green Hornet” will be quite different than previous incarnations.  Previously, Lenore “Casey” Case was Rogen’s Britt Reid’s secretary and knew everything about the newspaper editor’s late night activities. However in this version, Casey is a television obsessed amateur sleuth who is stalking the Green Hornet and Kato.
• One part of the superhero power team of the Ryan Reynolds/Scarlett Johannson team spoke about “Iron Man 2.” I don’t know, I really liked Emily Blunt.

Yet another graphic novel tie-in to a movie with an all star cast of artists attached. I swear, this is too good to be true.

Heidi over at the Beat says, Cameron Stewart (“Seaguy”), Tommy Lee Edwards (“Marvel 1985″), Nico Henrichon (“Pride of Baghdad”) will collaborate with writer  Jordan Mechner to bring the Jake Gyllenhaal film to four-color pages.  Mechner  wrote the video  game to which the film is based upon.  And that’s right, you guessed it, there will be a panel discussing the book at SDCC, at 11:30 on Friday at the Disney Press panel.

• The Flickcast reports that workaholic Christos Gage is adapting Dante’s epic poem, The Divine Comedy for DC Comics. They also feature some great screengrabs from the video game due in 2010.  Looks epic.
• “Oh no, not THE HORNETS!” Nicolas Cage joins “The Green Hornet”.  I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help myself. This movie is like rubber necking a car accident on the 59th Street bridge. Something bad happens seemingly every month. Stephen Chow is out as Kato, but they add Nicolas Cage and Cameron Diaz.  I don’t know, with the amounts of weird choices in this movie from director Michel Gondry to these two, this  is going to be one very intriguing movie. Or a car wreck.
• This is for my girlfriend: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have a writer!  His name is John Frusca and he wrote Young Guns! Woah. Cowabunga, dude.