Paramount Pictures and Chernin Entertainment have acquired the rights to a popular superhero who doesn't exist within the umbrellas of the big two comic companies.

The production studios have purchased the rights to The Green Hornet, and have enlisted Gavin O'Connor to direct. O'Connor is fresh off of his Ben Affleck project The Accountant and will be working with Sean O'Keefe on the script (via Deadline). This project will be much different in tone than the Green Hornet tv series or even the Seth Rogen film.

It's heartening to know that O'Connor is heavily invested in the character, and comes at the project from a fans perspective.

“I’ve been wanting to make this movie — and create this franchise — since I’ve wanted to make movies,” O’Connor said. “As a kid, when most of my friends were into Superman and Batman, there was only one superhero who held my interest — The Green Hornet. I always thought he was the baddest badass because he had no superpowers. The Green Hornet was a human superhero. And he didn’t wear a clown costume. And he was a criminal — in the eyes of the law — and in the eyes of the criminal world. So all this felt real to me. Imagine climbing to the top of the Himalayas, or Mount Everest, or K2 over and over again and no one ever knew? You can never tell anybody. That’s the life of Britt and Kato. What they do, they can never say. They don’t take credit for anything.”

O'Connor hopes that fans will give the character a chance, who has proved quite popular in his Dynamite Entertainment comic series, but has yet to truly make that jump to film. Green Hornet is a passion project for O'Connor, and a long held one at that.

“For almost 20 years now I’ve been tracking the rights, watching from the sidelines as they were optioned by one studio or another,” he said. “When I discovered the rights were available again, I tracked them down, partnered with Peter Chernin and we set the movie up at Paramount. With the rights now in our loving hands, I’m beyond excited to bring The Green Hornet into the 21st century in a meaningful and relevant way; modernizing it and making it accessible to a whole new generation. My intention is to bring a gravitas to The Green Hornet that wipes away the camp and kitsch of the previous iteration. I want to re-mythologize The Green Hornet in a contemporary context, with an emphasis on story and character, while at the same time, incorporating themes that speak to my heart. The comic book movie is the genre of our time. How do we look at it differently? How do we create a distinctive film experience that tells itself differently than other comic book movies? How do we land comfortably at the divide between art and industry? How do we go deeper, prompt more emotion? How do we put a beating heart into the character that was never done before? These are my concerns…these are my desires, my intentions, my fears, my goals.”

No release date has been set for the project.