Well, I’m not sure I like where this is going at all. According to Variety, Nicolas Cage and His Amazing Hair are in talks to join the Michel Gondry-directed The Green Hornet. This is just a week after Stephen Chow dropped out of the role of sidekick Kato. (Months after he left the director’s chair.) Once upon a time I could have seen Cage really killing this sort of role, but I haven’t seen him do anything inspired in a long time. He would be a “gangster villain”, but still I just come up with a looped image of his Fu Manchu from the Grindhouse trailer Werewolf Women of the SS.

Cue cries that the casting for this has gone off the rails, but in some ways it makes sense. Columbia Pictures has Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg writing a crazy take on a superhero no one cares about, so someone in an office has to get some names attached that people will recognize. Diaz fits the bill, and people do still go see Nic Cage movies. What can Michel Gondry make out of a cast that so far looks to feature the unlikely trio of Rogen, Diaz and Cage? Who knows, but the guy has made good stuff out of Legos and cardboard, so… (this is where someone makes a crack about the cardboard acting better than Cage has recently.)

The trade also notes that Cameron Diaz remains in talks to join the picture as “a reporter and love interest.” Meanwhile, Kato’s identity remains a mystery. For the time being, I’ll go with this reasoning: bad guys like to kick the crap out of women, and we know Cage can do that. As proven by the following clip. And if his work in The Green Hornet is even half this entertaining, I’ll watch it ten times.