Recently there has been a whole slew of photographs from the set of Seth Rogen’s Green Hornet film, and I have to say they look great.

Before Seth Rogen, and even before Bruce Lee, the Green Hornet was a long running radio serial.  Starting out as a cousin to the Lone Ranger, the character was created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker in the 1930s.

I was originally introduced to the character during an episode of Adam West’s Batman when I was a kid.  Van Williams and Bruce Lee’s version of the character was on the show and I don’t really remember what ended up happening but Batman and Robin did fight Bruce Lee and Van Williams, and I think its pretty clear that Bruce Lee kicked Burt Ward’s ass.  I don’t really remember, but yeah.

YouTube has it:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Regardless, the Flickcast has more photos from the set. Featuring Rogen and Jay Chou as his sidekick Kato, and directed by visionary director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).

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.

Some movie news, because I like that stuff, so sorry if I drown you all in it, but there have been some interesting things of note.

• Akiva Goldsman is rebooting Fantastic Four. Gonna be tough to reboot a property that is, well, won’t come off as a ripoff of The Incredibles. Of course, its the other way around, but, yeah.
• Some Danish dude is going to make Deadman.  WITH Guillermo Del Toro.
• Seth Rogen’s  Green Hornet release date changed to December. People are beginning to see this as baiting it for the Oscars, but well, I don’t see how that could be. In reality its probably more drowning it in a season where the real Oscar bait comes out and more people will see those movies rather than what may be a disaster. I hope not, but I do think Hornet should be a fairly one of a kind movie.