"The Green Hornet" Creates Buzz at Comic-Con

SAN DIEGO — Seth Rogen is a superhero who wields a blowtorch and has a Chrysler equipped with hood-mounted machine guns in Columbia Pictures’ upcoming action adventure The Green Hornet.

The film doesn't open until next year, but Rogen showed a brief clip recently to about 6,000 fans at Comic-Con.

The writer-actor said it was important to debut the footage at San Diego 's annual pop culture convention because "the people who are in this room are probably the biggest movie and comic book fans on the planet."

"We are excited for you specifically to like this movie," he said.

The clip showed Rogen as Britt Reid — who becomes the Green Hornet — out for an adventure with his sidekick Kato, a masterful fighter and mechanic played by Jay Chou. It also offered viewers a look at the Black Beauty, their 1965 Chrysler Imperial armed with guns, rockets and other secret weapons. Kato himself is also a weapon: When a street fight erupts, he defends his pal in a scene that plays with timing and perspective, revealing director Michel Gondry's experimental touch.

The director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind said he was excited to take on a superhero story — especially in 3-D.

"I have developed some techniques that I never had the opportunity to use in a big scale movie," Gondry said, adding that he found the relationship between Britt and Kato particularly alluring.

Both director and star said they always hoped to do their film in 3-D and designed its visual concepts with dimension in mind, but they still had to persuade the studio to spend the time and money to convert it. That process delayed its release until January 2010, producer Neal Moritz said.

Rogen and co-writer Evan Goldberg said they drew from The Green Hornet's radio, television and comic-book histories to create their modern-day version of the vigilante superhero. Their story focuses on the hero-sidekick relationship between Britt and Kato.

"Me and Evan, we're lifelong comic book fans. We've always wanted to make a movie like this," Rogen said. "Specifically as writers, what attracts us is movies that explore relationships, usually between two dudes, as lame as that sounds."

(Opening soon across the Philippines , The Green Hornet is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Visit www.sonypictures.com.ph to get the latest movie news, video clips, games and free downloads. Find us on Facebook www.Facebook.com/ColumbiaPicturesPH and join our fan contests.)