Here's why Nicolas Cage left 'The Green Hornet'

Earlier this month, we found out Nicolas Cage dropped out of Michel Gondry's upcoming action adventure "The Green Hornet," but back then, it was not really clear why so. The only thing we knew was that Cage failed to reach a proper deal with Columbia. There was more to it though, and Cage now revealed what happened.

When speaking to the Canadian Press, Cage said he left the project because of creative differences with Gondry and screenwriter and star of the film, Seth Rogen. Remember Cage was supposed to play the film's lead villain.

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

"'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," he said.

Cage also said he wanted to have some humanity to his character, but somehow, that didn't really work with Gondry and Rogen's vision.

With Cage gone, "Inglourious Basterds" star Christoph Waltz jumped on board to play the part. He will star as 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.