After delivering what I believe is easily one of the year's best performance as nasty Col. Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," Austrian actor Christoph Waltz is now set to play the bad guy in Michel Gondry's upcoming "The Green Hornet."

Nicolas Cage was supposed to play the villain in the crime adventure, but he recetly dropped out. Variety says Waltz will play Chudnofsky, a Los Angeles crime lord who tries to bring together a number of gangs to form his own criminal force.

"Hornet" follows the adventures of Britt Reid (Seth Rogen), who inherits his dad's newspaper and fights crime as a masked hero at night. Evan Goldberg and Rogen penned the script for the flick, which is set for release next year.

Cameron Diaz and Jay Chou also star in the film, which is now filming. It is set for release Dec. 17, 2010. By the way, Waltz won the best actor award for "Basterds" at this year's Cannes Film Festival. This guy is truly amazing.