The tenth floor newsroom at the Sentinel Media headquarters in Century City is trashed. Wires and ducts dangle from the ripped open ceiling. Desks and cubicles have been reduced to rubble. It's a disaster area. Judging from the skid marks on the carpet, someone's been driving a car in here.
"None of this is set dressing," boasts producer Neal H. Moritz. "It was all done for real. That half car... came through here at incredible speed and took all this stuff out. We shot a few real missiles in here."
Moritz is in his element. This is the type of over-the-top mayhem he's been delivering for well over a decade in films like THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, xXx and S.W.A.T. Though he doesn't betray much emotion, it's evident he's very pleased with what went down on this Culver Studios set just a few days ago. He knows how to make this work.
As for what's transpiring on a soundstage over at the adjacent Sony lot (and, most importantly, who's in charge of it), well, this is perhaps a new challenge for the meat-and-potatos producer.
It's an early December morning, and a group of online journalists are getting their first glimpse of THE GREEN HORNET. Yes, after years of errant development and false starts, the masked superhero created by Fran Striker and George W. Trendle is finally getting the lavish, big-screen treatment Hollywood has determined fans cannot live without. As Moritz leads us around the Owen Paterson's elegantly-designed sets (you know and love his work from THE MATRIX trilogy, V FOR VENDETTA and SPEED RACER), it quickly becomes clear that this is a big movie. The aforementioned action set piece - which also involves the Black Beauty being crashed into a glass elevator and split in half as it smashes into the third-floor ceiling of the lobby - is the handiwork of veteran second-unit-director/stunt-coordinator Vic Armstrong. The cinematographer is John Schwartzman, who knows from barely-organized chaos after three tours of duty with Michael Bay. This is an A-plus production across the board.
So, naturally, they placed it in the hands of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who in turn brought in the master-of-handmade-whimsy, Michel Gondry, to direct.
It may seem like two films are being made here, but, if anything, Gondry appears to be reining in his fantastical impulses in order to mesh with Moritz's mainstream sensibilities. Rogen and Goldberg have helped to ease the transition by writing a screenplay that fits snugly into the action-comedy genre ala 48 HRS. or MIDNIGHT RUN. As you can tell from the recently-released trailer, the setup is pretty basic: it's a buddy film, with the typical GREEN HORNET dynamic upended to emphasize the ruthless efficacy of Kato (Jay Chou) and the relative incompetence of Britt Reid. Nothing revolutionary here.
But, as we settle in on the Sony soundstage, where Rogen and Chou are laying waste to Britt's pool-house bachelor pad by engaging in clumsy fisticuffs, some of that inimitable Gondry silliness begins to surface. For reasons I can't discern, Britt's quarters are festooned with cheesy hard rock posters (Joe Satriani looms large here); there's also a suit of armor randomly hanging out. While we examine the gaudy clutter of the bedroom, I notice a member of the Armstrong stunt team working out a piece of fight choreography behind Britt's fully stocked bar. He's toying with the glass door of a refrigerator. "Could someone's head get shoved in here?"
When we get a chance to chat with Gondry, he's quick to single out working with Armstrong as a highlight. "He's all for doing things practically," says Gondry. "We don't rely so much on blue screen. There will be some blue screen and other computer elements, but, at the minimum, we want the physicality to be [emphasized]."
This is certainly the case with the Britt/Kato fight scene, the staging of which is about to culminate with Rogen's stunt double being jerked via wires through a glass window. They let us stick around on the set to watch them execute the gag, and, I've got to say, it's a bit of a rush watching a top-flight stuntman do his thing. As always, I'm surprised by how quickly and smoothly they set the sequence up - and that it goes off without a hitch. These guys are the best in the business. It's times like these I wish I could hop in a time machine and visit the set of HOOPER.
For the first time since arriving on the soundstage, I begin to sense a comfort level. This may not be Gondry's preferred method of shooting a movie, but he's enjoying the opportunity to place certain stylistic limitations on himself. There's too much money on the line here; he can't get too carried away.
One of my colleagues asks Gondry if he's worried about the perception that he's selling out. Predictably, he bristles at the notion. "That's too bad they feel this way," he says, mildly annoyed. "It's hard enough for me to get a movie. If I get ghettoized, what do I do?"
As for commenters and talkbackers who question the wisdom of the whole endeavor, Gondry is amused. "The best email I received, or blog I read, was 'Seth Rogen is the worst actor in the universe, and whoever hired Michel should be fired.' It was really awesome. I framed it." But he quickly turns defensive. "What else do you want me to say? People are against me - and some people are against me doing movies [like THE GREEN HORNET]. They try to demonstrate that they were right from the beginning, and they are hoping for your decline."
As a comic book fan, and someone who's very aware of the online discourse, Rogen has anticipated this skepticism and is eager to address it. Interestingly, he's just as bored with superhero movies as the rest of us, which informed his take on the material. "The fact that everyone's seen a hundred super hero movies at this point makes it a lot easier to play with the conventions because people know what to expect when you do something different. They know that you're subverting it. As a comic book fan, it's nice that it's reached a wide enough audience at this point that you can almost deal with it as though the whole world was these nerdy comic book fans. It's just part of the culture now. Everyone knows that Deadpool was part of the Weapon X program. The fact that that's common knowledge among kids these days is mind-blowing to me. If you had told me that when I was a kid, 'One day, every kid will know this shit...,' it's crazy. And it's really exciting now to be able to use the fact that everyone has this knowledge and this expectation from these movies to do what it is that we want to do creatively."
People are generally on their best behavior when journalists visit the set, but if a movie is troubled, you can still detect the tension. Obviously, Moritz and Gondry have two very different philosophies when it comes to filmmaking. But watching them work together, and noticing their excitement at checking out - over the journalists' shoulders - a sizzle reel hastily cut-together to give us a sense of what the film is going to be, it seems obvious to me that everyone feels upbeat about the direction of THE GREEN HORNET. This is the movie they set out to make. And I'd say that even if I didn't get a testicle-rattling ride around Culver City in the Black Beauty!
I can't wait to see what the boys bring down to Comic Con next month. THE GREEN HORNET hits theaters nationwide in 3-D on January 14th, 2011.
Faithfully submitted,
Mr. Beaks
