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.