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Executive Producer, writer Seth Rogen with a 1965 Chrysler Imperial from Columbia Pictures' The Green Hornet
June 25, 2010
Green Hornet movie revives glory of Chrysler Imperial
To film scenes of the car used by The Green Hornet, the picture car coordinator had to provide the production department with 29 1964-66 Chrysler Imperials. Some of the cars had to be modified with roll cages, several were cut in half and another had to be made strong enough to survive jumps.
- The Green Hornet, which is set to be released in January, 2011, is based on a 1930s American radio program about a suave newspaper publisher who is also a masked superhero with a martial arts expert sidekick. The program became a 1966-67 TV series starring Van Williams and Bruce Lee before it became a series of comic books. The new movie stars Seth Rogen and Cameron Diaz.
-Rogen unveiled the Black Beauty at the 2009 San Diego Comic Convention.
Here's a rundown on how each of the 29 cars were used for the upcoming action film:
-One car was kept in pristine stock condition before it was modified into Black Beauty. On another, a chassis was modified with a Chevrolet V8 and other items to show the car under construction.
-Two cars appear as stock Imperials before the transformation into Black Beauty, but they include roll cages and Chevy big-block V8s for stunts.
-One Black Beauty body was used to depict the car under construction.
-One Black Beauty shows the car in its perfect state.
-Some of the cars had to be strengthened for jumps and crashes. To test how much punishment the Imperial could take, one was dropped more than four metres from a crane. "We ran out of crane before we ran out of car," Dennis McCarthy, the picture car co-ordinator, says about the Imperial, which is renowned for its toughness.
-One Black Beauty was equipped with a smaller Chevy V8, roll cage and modified suspension to perform the jumps, which included a scene of the car flying through a window. Another car was needed to complete that scene, which shows Black Beauty buried nose first in the ground like a lawn dart.
-One Black Beauty was also built with a reinforced side so it could be hit by a truck.
-One car had a driving pod mounted on its roof so a stunt driver could pilot during filming inside the car with the camera looking out. Two cars show different levels of bullet damage.
-One Black Beauty was built to be chopped in half on screen; one had the front-drive powertrain from an old Cadillac Eldorado so it could be driven after being cut in half; and another was a half car for a scene in which it was buried.
-One non-running Black Beauty was built to show off its exotic weapons, some of which include two hood-mounted machine guns and missile launchers.
-Four Black Beauties were built as non-running "process" cars -- parts and pieces that could be assembled or disassembled for shooting against a green screen with backgrounds digitally added later.
-Seven Black Beauties were modified for stunt work with large Chevy V8s, racing brakes and roll cages.
-Finally, one car simply donated its parts to all the others.
LINK: Green Hornet movie revives glory of Chrysler Imperial
