The rumor mill giveth, the rumor mill taketh away. First came a report (in Variety) that Nicolas Cage would play the gangster villain opposite Seth Rogen in Rogen's new take on The Green Hornet.

Not so, says The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog:

Cage was to play the villain in Columbia's action movie, being directed by Michel Gondry, but the actor and the studio were not able to come to terms on a deal.
Columbia had no comment but sources said the studio is on the hunt for a new bad guy.

No scenes with Cage were on shot for the movie, which just began principal photography in Los Angeles last week.


Rogen, Cameron Diaz and Jay Chou are still reportedly attached to the movie, which is based on the classic crime-fighter radio serial and 1960s TV series.

http://www.heatvisionblog.com/2009/09/nicolas-cage-dropt-out-of-green-hornet.html

EXCLUSIVE: I'm told that ICM's actor Christoph Waltz who won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for playing a Nazi in Inglourious Basterds (and is a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination) has now been cast as villain Chudnofsky in Sony's The Green Hornet opposite Seth Rogen and Cameron Diaz. Since Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds came out -- and crossed the $100M mark this weekend -- Waltz has been offered a lot of big movies by a lot of big directors. And he's getting big bucks now. How great he's found success at age 52. Big breaks like this keep actors in Hollywood still hopeful...

http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/christoph-waltz-to-be-villain-in-green-hornet/

AWESOME!!!!

TORONTO - Nicolas Cage says he dropped out of "The Green Hornet" film because of creative differences with star and screenwriter Seth Rogen and director Michel Gondry.


Cage discussed his decision while appearing at the Toronto International Film Festival to promote the darkly comic film, "Bad Lieutenant, Port of Call: New Orleans." He had been in talks to play the lead villain opposite Vancouver's Rogen, who will portray the masked crime fighter.


But Cage says he "wasn't interested in just being just a straight-up bad guy who was killing people willy-nilly."


He says Rogen and Gondry "had a different take on the character" and there wasn't enough time to develop the script.


Christoph Waltz of "Inglourious Basterds" has reportedly signed on to the role of Chudnofsky.


"'The Green Hornet' was something that I wanted to do, I think Michel Gondry is very talented and I had hoped it would work but I think Seth Rogen and Michel had a different take on the character," said Cage, who starred in 2007's supernatural comic book film, "Ghost Rider."


"I had to have some humanity and to try to give it something where you could understand why the character was the way he was but I don't think there was enough time to develop it."


"The Green Hornet" is slated for release in 2010.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090915/entertainment/film_green_hornet_cage

He wanted it to "develop"? We know his way of "developing" I saw Ghost Rder, his best scenes were when he was Ghost Rider!