Michel Gondry, the new, NEW Director of Green Hornet

Columbia Pictures says it is in talks with “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” director Michel Gondry to replace Hong Kong comedian Stephen Chow at the helm of its adaptation of “The Green Hornet.” Producer Neal Moritz said in a statement issued by the Hollywood studio Tuesday that the French filmmaker’s works are “as daring as they are extraordinary.” Chow was originally slated to direct and star as Kato in “The Green Hornet” alongside Seth Rogen, but said in December he backed out as director so he could work on a superhero comedy with Jack Black. The original series, which debuted on the radio in 1936, is about a newspaper publisher who moonlights as a masked crime-fighter along with his martial arts-expert sidekick.

Seth Rogen’s high-profile superhero movie has a brand-new director — one of the most distinctive visionaries in Hollywood — and the star can only use three words to describe how he’s feeling about it.

“It’s f—ing crazy!” he said when we spoke with him Tuesday, accentuating the point with his trademark laugh (which was imitated by Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard backstage at the Oscars).

His new “Green Hornet” collaborator is none other than Michel Gondry, the eye-popping auteur who gave us “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Be Kind Rewind,” and too many classic music videos to list here. Capping off an exhaustive search, the “Pineapple Express” funnyman said Gondry is the perfect director for his comedic take on the crime-fighting newspaper publisher who first slipped into his green mask in 1936.

“Me and [co-writer] Evan [Goldberg] have always been gigantic fans of [Gondry],” Rogen beamed. “We just like anyone who thinks outside the box, and there’s really nobody who thinks more outside the box then he does; he’s really a magician in a lot of ways.”

- from MTV