Sony stung by The Green Hornet

The Green Hornet is a project that has been – ahem – buzzing around Hollywood for a while now. Most recently, Harvey Weinstein hired Kevin Smith to write and direct an update the story in an all-action movie version. But while Kev cranked out a draft of the script, he never really felt like he could handle a big action film and dropped out of the running. The idea lingered at Miramax, but clearly now the rights have lapsed.

Now Neil H Moritz, the man responsible for bringing the world three Fast & The Furious movies, Stealth and the xXx films, has nabbed the concept. And aren’t we all grateful… Still, the man who seems to have a thousand films in development at any one time is confident that he can make something special out of the Hornet, especially with his friends at Sony.

"I couldn't be more thrilled to be developing this world renowned property with the people who brought Spider-Man to the screen. I can't imagine a studio better equipped or more prepared to handle this kind of material than Sony,” Moritz blabbed in a press release. “With the radio show, television program, comic books, and novels, there is ample source material to bring this classic crime-fighter to life."

Sony clearly sees franchise possibilities in the Hornet idea, which sprung to live in 1936 on a Detroit radio station and has spawned TV shows and comics. It chronicles the adventures of Britt Reid, millionaire playboy newspaper publisher by day and crime fighter by night. With faithful, quick-fisted sidekick Kato (a role played on TV by a young Bruce Lee), and supercharged Black Beauty (his car, in case you were wondering), he battles the bad guys using his secret identity.

There’s no writer, director or cast on board yet, but we’ll let you know as soon as we do. There is a release date though: 5 May…. Nah, just kidding. Even Sony’s not crazy enough to put a release date on a film that’s not even in production yet. Oh, wait: that’s what they did with Spider-Man 3.