Seth Rogen: Ordinary Guy or Super Hero?

Ok, let's talk film. Seth Rogen talks about playing the Green Hornet, going before the cameras in June.

From Collider.com

While Seth Rogen’s “Green Hornet” has been talked about for over a year now and people have wondered if it would ever get made, it seems that it’s finally getting ready to go before the cameras this June. At least that’s what Seth said just an hour ago during a round table interview while promoting his new comedy “Observe and Report”.


“Right now we’re scheduled sometime at the end of June,” he said.

Couple things come to my mind here. Number one, on "Observe and Report". The film looks like the R Rated answer to "Paul Blart Mall Cop". Hollywood does things in two's anyway. This is another testament to that theory. Since the new Seth Rogen film seems like a copy of "Paul Blart". It will do fairly well at the box office. The only thing that will prevent "Observe and Report" from doing "Paul Blart" numbers at the box office is the R rating. Whenever a film is R rated, the box office receipts will always suffer. An R rating excludes the teenage crowd from seeing the film at the theater. The 12 - 17 crowd is a significant demo. At the same time, Seth and his sometime producer, Judd Apatow (40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up) are the only ones who are keeping the R rated comedy alive. A large population of movie goers flock to R rated comedies. They don't want the "Let's kick someone in the balls" PG comedy. They want smart comedy with edge. I actually am thankful that Seth and Apatow are keeping the "Animal House" "American Pie" genre alive. Still with a huge following of the R rated comedy out there, movies of the sort don't rake in PG-13 numbers.

Going back to the "Green Hornet" film. I am not sure Seth Rogen needs a comic book movie to help his career. Great comic book films are very hard to pull off. Not to mention they are a tired genre. I don't think this world needs more comic book films and especially not from someone like Seth who makes original film without hacking ideas from the Super Hero genre. I am not sure it's a good idea for Seth Rogen. I hope the Green Hornet idea falls through for his sake. He needs to continue with what he does best and that is to make us laugh with "Regular Guy" roles. That is what sells him tickets.

More in that Seth article

The other thing he was asked was is the film still the hero/sidekick story. Seth said, “Yeah and I’d say if anything it’s taken on…at first we were kind of resisting the notion of an origin story but then we realized if we kind of embraced it and played with that idea it could be a lot better so that’s something we’ve added.

Yeah Seth! You can't get away from the origin story. Even if you ditch the story now, if the Green Hornet film is successful, you will eventually have to do the origin story. You know as well as I do Seth that everything is Hollywood is "Begins" "Someone or something Begins" So you might as well get it out of the way! Another case in point as to why he should stay away from the Super Hero genre. Keep up the good work Seth. Until later, let's talk film.