The pairing of Nicolas Cage and Seth Rogen as supervillain vs. superhero in The Green Hornet always seemed like a strange match. They're two guys who both seem to get control over the movies they make, and choose to make very, very different movies in the process. Add in the presence of Michel Gondry, a director whose work is always distinct from anyone else's, and there were probably a lot of arguments about the direction of the film happening behind the scenes.

So it's not actually that surprising to hear via Yahoo! News that Cage blames "creative differences" for his baling on the Green Hornet movie. "'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."

But here's the surprising part-- Cage demanded that the villain actually have a soft side. "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." Coming from the king of overacting, who could have made an amazing meal of out an over-the-top villain role, this sounds practically crazy. Given all the bad and outright stupid roles he's played in the last few years, why was this the one where he put his foot down?

Of course, because Cage balked, Christoph Waltz got the part instead, and that's a blessing for all of us. If Waltz can't make the villain two-dimensional, we'll know no one can, and maybe Cage was right. But something tells me Waltz might make enough out of this part to prove these creative differences were probably just a giant clash of egos.