In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night, No Evil Shall Escape Green Lantern

After a Comic Con panel that didn’t make the grade back in July and a rushed out first trailer that even the studio has apologized for, we have seen almost no marketing for the upcoming DC comics adaptation film, “Green Lantern”. This week, we were told why through the current WonderCon that has been exploited by Warner Bros. Pictures as the launching pad for its "Green Lantern" marketing campaign to try and turn the tide of indifference and skepticism about the project around. They said the movie is not finished, and the studio does not feel comfortable releasing promo materials until it is. Los Angeles Times even published an interview with the studio president Jeff Robinov, who said that because the film’s intricate visual effects shots have taken longer than expected to complete, the studio has held off rolling out a major marketing strategy. Instead, he said to expect a second trailer to be attached to “Thor” when it is released May 6th. So, will this marketing strategy affect the way “Green Lantern” is accepted when it is launched in June? As we know it, the summer movie season is arguably the most flooded ever, with big budgeted movies being released every weekend. This makes banking lofty opening weekend returns crucial. With such a muted marketing campaign, it is possible the superhero with green costume could get lost in the June shuffle and post modest box office grosses. Well, other than Christopher Nolan's two "Batman" films rule supreme over the current generation of superhero movies, other DC attempts only range from the noble but fatally flawed (Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns" and Zac Snyder's "Watchmen") to the famously dreadful (2004's "Catwoman" and 2010's "Jonah Hex"). While Marvel is off making buckets of money with “Iron Man”, “Spider-Man”, and the “X-Men”, DC is left wondering why nobody cared when Superman returned. And for “Green Lantern”, though there's an in-built fanbase amongst comic fans, the character has little name recognition across the wider spectrum. That awareness drops almost to zero outside of the U.S. where the few DC superheroes which are household names have earned that attentiveness due to pre-existing TV shows and movies, something 'Lantern' hasn't had outside of the recent "Justice League" animated series. Having said all that, I just can wish all the best for director Martin Campbell and his first superhero film.

In a universe as vast as it is mysterious, a small but powerful force has existed for centuries. Protectors of peace and justice, they are called the Green Lantern Corps. A brotherhood of warriors sworn to keep intergalactic order, each Green Lantern wears a ring that grants him superpowers. But when a new enemy called Parallax threatens to destroy the balance of power in the Universe, their fate and the fate of Earth lie in the hands of their newest recruit, the first human ever selected: Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds). Hal is a gifted and cocky test pilot, but the Green Lanterns have little respect for humans, who have never harnessed the infinite powers of the ring before. But Hal is clearly the missing piece to the puzzle, and along with his determination and willpower, he has one thing no member of the Corps has ever had: humanity. With the encouragement of fellow pilot and childhood sweetheart Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), if Hal can quickly master his new powers and find the courage to overcome his fears, he may prove to be not only the key to defeating Parallax…he will become the greatest Green Lantern of all.

The facts are out there, just over the horizon:

# The filmmakers considered making this film about Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, whose powers were magical rather than cosmic. They decided to go with Hal Jordan as he was the most popular Lantern and the one on whom (most of) the GL universe was constructed around.

# This is Ryan Reynolds's third superhero film, after “Blade: Trinity” (2004) (Hannibal King) and “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” (2009) (Wade Wilson); it also marks a rare occasion where an actor has appeared in both a Marvel Comics and DC Comics film.

# Reynolds stressed that Jordan can throw a joke here and there, dry one liners, but he didn’t improvise much because he wanted to keep it true to the comic book character. He compared Hal Jordan to Han Solo saying he “can get the girl, tell a joke and throw a punch.”

# Alternatively Chris Pine and Sam Worthington had been in discussions for the role. Bradley Cooper, Jared Leto and Justin Timberlake screen tested, while Brian Austin Green, a Green Lantern fan, campaigned for the part, but ultimately did not audition.

# Blake Lively was chosen from a short list of potential candidates including Eva Green, Keri Russell, Diane Kruger and Jennifer Garner.

# To prepare for Carol Ferris's action scenes, Lively underwent training on the “The Matrix” (1999)'s aerial stunt rigs, assisted by acrobats from the "Cirque du Soleil" and supervised by noted stunt coordinator Gary Powell. She described it as a great experience: "I'm 40 feet in the air, spiralling around. That's the best workout you can ever do because it's all core... You do that for ten minutes and you should see your body the next day! It's so exhilarating, so thrilling - and nauseating."

# In the comics, Ferris became the Star Sapphire, an anti-hero with abilities similar to the Green Lantern; she later became a soldier (and currently queen) of the Star Sapphire Corps, a all-female force parallel to the Green Lantern Corps . The Star Sapphire logo can be seen on Carol's helmet as she flies her jet.

# Lively shot her scene in “Gossip Girl” break. She shot her last scene on Gossip at 1am in New York City and was on set for “Green Lantern” in New Orleans later that morning.

# Kevin Smith turned down the offer to direct Green Lantern, believing there were other suitable candidates to make the movie. Zack Snyder also was approached to direct, but he turned down the offer due to his commitment on Watchmen.

# Warner Bros. has considered changing the direction of the film into that of a comedy; by June 2006, Robert Smigel had completed a script which was set to star Jack Black in the lead role. However, the studio dropped the comedy idea due to poor fan reaction on the Internet.

# Greg Berlanti signed on to co-write and direct the film in 2007, but he stepped down to instead direct “This Is Where I Leave You” (2011) and handed direction over to Martin Campbell. However, he remained on board as a writer and producer.

# When Berlanti was in charge, he hired comic book writers Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim to work on the script. They found it difficult writing the script because two of their drafts of the screenplay had been leaked on the Internet during the scripting phase.

# The scriptwriters drew inspiration from the Green Lantern comics 'Emerald Dawn' (which told the story of Hal Jordan's induction into the Green Lantern Corps and how he became its greatest member) and 'Secret Origin' (a modern retelling of Hal Jordan's early days as a Green Lantern), as well as the work of Denny O'Neil-Neal Adams and Dave Gibbons' work on the "Green Lantern" comic.

# Martin Campbell's favorite Green Lantern is Bzzd. He has also said that if he could become a Green Lantern, he would be Kilowog.

# Comic book writer Geoff Johns, who has worked on the "Green Lantern" comic and made it a resounding success, was signed on as a creative consultant on the film. Johns tried to get the film produced in 2000, but the first question he was asked was whether the film could be made without the ring. This discouraged him so badly that he didn't make another attempt until “The Dark Knight” (2008) released.

# Lively stressed that Geoff Johns was on set for most of the shoot making sure they got it right.

# The Green Lantern uniform is portrayed in computer-generated imagery; this was a creative move by the filmmakers, who wanted the uniform not to be a real cloth outfit but a light construct generated by the Lantern power ring. Notably the comics originally started with Hal Jordan wearing an actual uniform, but later changed it to where his and the other Green Lanterns uniforms were constructs created by their rings. The humanoid actors (Ryan Reynolds, Temuera Morrison and Mark Strong) wore motion-capture suits, over which the uniforms were rendered.

# Hugo Weaving, Jackie Earle Haley and Geoffrey Rush were considered to for the role of Sinestro. Meanwhile, Kevin Kline was considered for the role of Senator Hammond.

# Peter Sarsgaard had a prosthetic applied on his head to portray Hector Hammond in the initial stages of his mutation (a swollen brain). For scenes where Hammond's head actually enlarges it will be done in CGI. Sarsgaard loved his look as Hector Hammond so much he declared himself the "king of the prostheses!" He described Hammond as an expression of what he keeps inside: "He's the kid that licked a battery, or went on the roof during a thunderstorm with a coat hanger."

# The movie was originally scheduled to be shot at Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia but the rising Australian dollar forced the studio and director Martin Campbell to seek relocation, New Orleans and various parishes around the city was chosen because it was it was perfect location from the scouts, the city has perfect aura for filming almost anything, many studio's are being built in the city now known as Hollywood south and Louisiana tax incentive that many other cities have copied but still not as successful as Louisiana have help make it easy to film big and small budget movies in the State.

# A life-size prop of Abin Sur's escape pod was constructed for the crash site scene. The comics vary on why the Green Lantern Abin Sur travelled in a spaceship when his ring could sustain him in space. The early comics say it was to prevent unnecessarily using the power on his ring; later versions presented him with a prophecy that his ring would fail him (which ironically came true at the moment his ship malfunctioned).

# 25-30% of the film takes place on planet Oa, but the filmmakers haven’t made their final decision on the voice of Kilowog yet though have "very seriously" talked to Michael Clarke Duncan, and 25 fully animated "key Lantern" characters will be seen throughout the picture.

# At one point Clark Kent/Superman was in the script (he had a cameo as one of the candidates considered to receive a power ring), but he was cut out because the filmmakers didn't want to depend on another superhero for a success.

Mark your calendar on:
June 16, 2011: Hungary, Malaysia, Netherlands, Singapore, Slovenia
June 17: Canada, India, Italy, Poland, UK, USA
June 30: Argentina
July 17: Azerbaijan
July 22: Japan
July 28: Portugal
July 29: Finland, Sweden, Turkey
Aug 03: France
Aug 04: Germany
Aug 05: Norway

Sources: IMDB, Wikipedia – Photos courtesy of Warner Bros.