THE GREEN LANTERN now gets his own movie too!

Hot on the heels of the JLA spin-off movie The Flash given the go-ahead, comes news from Variety that The Green Lantern is to get his own stand alone movie. Interestingly this one will feature the character of Hal Jordan and not the black version of the character John Stewart as will be seen in JLA.

So is this movie in continuity with the Justice League or is it going the way of the Christian Bale and Brandon Routh by existing separately?

Warner Brothers have hired Greg Berlanti to write and direct the movie. He previously wrote and directed The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy seven years ago and it remains his only feature film so far, though he has written and produced the t.v. shows Dawson’s Creek, Everwood and Brothers and Sisters.

At 35, he is still fairly young for a director so let’s hope he is hungry for success because there is nothing above that does anything to suggest he deserves this gig.

Very strange isn’t it? Warner Brothers have completely lost any hope in new concepts or hunting down the more obscure characters in their comic book back catalogue and are now going ahead with many movies of the same character at the same time?

Two Flash movies (in their same continuity), Two Batman, Superman and Green Lantern movies (JLA and their own movies) could end up being extremely frustrating and confusing for the audience. Yeah they are finally getting use to comic book movies which has meant we will see the likes of this film, Watchmen, Super Max and JLA on the big screen, but they are really not thinking long term here.

What the hell is the rush? They are risking audience burn-out, audience confusing, and blowing their load for potential franchises later on when things have begun to run their course.

7 Comments »

Yeah! Now you’re talkin’ sense! What the f— is going on at Warner Bros.?!!

Comment by Scramble Network | October 29, 2007

If they’re going to make a Flash and Green Lantern movie they need to put JLA on hold. Better yet, they need to put everything they have into making JLA the best it can be THEN move forward with Green Lantern and Flash. Because when JLA comes out first the first thing people will ask is, “Why didn’t they just use Hal Jordan in JLA if that’s who they wanted all along?”

It’s not a matter of “audience burnout,” it’s a matter of using a character in movie after movie in an environment when even one bad outing by that character will affect not only the team movie they’re part of, but their own solo venture too.
This is not how you build a number of franchises. This is just one big, tangled mess.

Comment by JaySmack | October 29, 2007

I think the Green Lantern movie will remain in continuity with the Justice League flick. In the comics both Hal and John are based on earth at the same time so I don’t see why one could not be a JL member while the other ran solo.

Comment by Tino | October 29, 2007

The people at Warners seem to have gone fucking BONKERS!

Comment by The Glove | October 29, 2007

Can I just say that I auditioned for this, and as of now, I’m highly relieved to not be in the running for this clusterf*ck. Matt brings up a really good point: Two movies of every DC hero in its universe is only going to be costly and confusing to audiences. I’m getting disgusted with WB as of late. Remember the days when ‘comic book movie’ was taboo in Hollywood? The days where it took over two years to put Burton’s Batman on the screen because of the Donner Superman backlash? When people were afraid to make comic movies because of what Shoemaker did to the Batman franchise? Well, we’re heading back to those days on the express train. Hollywood has gotten too comfortable with the successes of X-Men and Spider-Man. And gauging the reaction to the third installments, I’d say audiences are starting to become weary of the genre due to over-exposure.

Comment by DirtyLungs | October 29, 2007

Dirty Lungs has aboslutely nailed it! Amen brother! The comic-book movie genre is turning to crap faster than any of us would have thought. thought. After nearly ten years of easy money pouring in, starting with the success of Blade in ‘98 Hollywood’s now feeling like all they have to do is simply “go dark” (without really know what that means) or just copy a comic book panel for panel (see Punisher) and it’ll be money in the bank.

This is the flip side of the Shumaker/Batman & Robin catastrophe. The studios are taking the audience for granted and thinking they can strip mine comics indefinitely. They don’t realize all it will take is two summere with two or more REALLY crappy movies and the comic book movie genre will right back where it was ten years ago. Sour with fans, and studios terrified to make one.

BTW Dirty, which part did you audition for?

Comment by JaySmack | November 4, 2007

Hi I just read your review on this topic. My view is this if they’re going to do this movie and I mean really do this movie then they have to stick to the comic at least. I hope WB is reading these comments from fans. WB here’s a idea when and if you do this movie go by the comic to the tea. Don’t tweek the comic in any way. If you do this then fans of the comic will come and see the movie and make dc look at what you’ve done and give you more comics to make into movies. I went an seen your compatition marvel’s iron man and I’ll tell you they did that movie to a tea, but they tweeked it a little. Which is good, but if you do the green lantern movie the exact same way only go by the comic then move fans of the comic will come and see it. One more thing is that don’t try to put so many villans in the movie, it confusses the audience and upsets the fans the true fans of the comic when you try to put too many villians in at the same time. I thank you for your time and hope that wb sees this or someone passes along this to wb.

Comment by Justin Meyer | June 4, 2008

The OWF Team