The Green Hornet, a property that began in 1936 as a radio adventure, film rights have been acquired by Amasia Entertainment.
Deadline reports that Amasia Entertainment co-founders, Michael Helfant and Bradley Gallo, have secured the film rights to The Green Hornet. The property has seen life as a 1936 radio serial, a 1966/1967 TV series, several comic books, and a 2011 feature film starring Seth Rogen.
In its time, its called Columbia, Universal Pictures, Dimension Films, Miramax, and Paramount Pictures home (not to mention having several homes for its comic book license that include Helnit Comics, Harvey Comics, NOW Comics, and Dynamite Entertainment).
The property first found life on a local Detroit radio station in 1936 and ran into the 1950s. It also found some life in film serials in 1940 and 1941 with The Green Hornet and The Green Hornet Strikes Again.
Before finding popularity in modern-day comics and the 2011 Seth Rogen feature film, The Green Hornet was most popular for its 1966-1967 television series, airing on ABC – which even crossed over with the classic Batman TV series. The series starred Van Williams as the Green Hornet/Britt Reid and Bruce Lee as Kato.
Helfant is passionate about The Green Hornet mythology, having the following to say about his childhood hero:
"“When I was a kid, The Green Hornet was one of my favorite television series. I loved everything about it: the Green Hornet, Kato, and of course, the Black Beauty. They were the coolest! It was personally painful to leave them all behind when I left Dimension. So I tried to option the property again at Marvel before it went over to Sony, and then again in 2017 before the rights landed at Paramount.”"
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Now that he has the property through Amasia Entertainment, he plans on building it up as a focal point to a larger universe. If they could launch a successful franchise out of the character, serious talks about building out that world would likely come to fruition. While some pulp-era rights may up in the era, we’ve seen studios share their IP more now than we ever have. Perhaps we could see the Lone Ranger, Green Hornet, Zorro, Spider, the Shadow, and countless other heroes of our past share the screen together.
The Green Hornet and other pulp-era heroes have yet to truly jump in on the success of Marvel’s MCU and Warner Bros. slate of DC movies. Let us know if you’re looking forward to a new The Green Hornet movie or what other heroes and stories from the pulp-era you’d like to see in the comments below!