Seth Rogen and co-writer Evan Goldberg are out doing the rounds to promote their new action comedy Pineapple Express, the latest arrival on the Judd Apatow production train.
Total Film was at yesterday’s Express press conference to see them quizzed on The Green Hornet, the superhero adaptation they’ve been writing for a while now. “We're done with the script, it looks like they're going to make it, we've got a release date. June 25th 2010...” laughs Rogen. “I know, mark your calendars because you're going to be busy. But it was helpful having made Pineapple Express in the writing of another movie. We learned how specific you can be. And in getting the Hornet writing job, we actually showed them some scenes from Pineapple in the pitching session, to show we could write action scenes!”
So, is it different writing a superhero action movie as opposed to a stoner comedy? “We didn’t have to be more disciplined. Luckily the MPAA decided that violence is fine. And when you're doing an action movie, you can have as much violence as you want. So in writing the Hornet, we have not hit many situations where we've said, ‘you know what would make this scene better? If Kato said, “cocksucker”...' That hasn't come up a lot... Otherwise, we've been able to do what we want.
For Goldberg, Pineapple Express represents a chance for them to prove they can make the Hornet work: “People were like, ‘Bullshit Seth Rogen can do that...’ So it's good that Pineapple comes out first.”
So what spurred them to want to make the movie in the first place? “To us it was this funny notion that when you say the Green Hornet to anyone, the first thing they say is, ‘Hey, Bruce Lee played Kato in that show,’” admits Rogen. “We've always wanted to make this hero/sidekick movie and for years we've always been trying write a movie that was about a hero and his sidekick and then when we heard the Hornet was up for grabs, we thought that could be the most perfect story to do because he is the only hero whose sidekick is more well known than he is. We thought it would be a good way to tell this relationship story and do a big crazy action movie too.“
Naturally, Rogen couldn’t resist one final pun, especially given that he was seated next to Express co-star (and Spider-Man villain) James Franco. “We're going to do a Green Goblin/Green Hornet crossover movie in 2012: Green Squared... “
