Posts Tagged ‘Green-Lantern’
Warner Bros is going 3D crazy. Post Avatar, the movie studio has announced post production 3D conversions of the last two Harry Potter films and Clash of the Titans. Rumors have been circulating that the studio was also considering 3D for the upcoming big screen adaptation of Green Lantern. A few weeks back, director Martin Campbell was asked about the possibility, to which he replied that the studio “haven’t really talked about it.” What a difference a few weeks can make…
Box Office Mojo has confirmed that Warner Bros will be releasing the superhero film in 3D, when it hits screens on June 17th 2011. The film begins principal photography later this month, and was said to have been shooting some tests recently. It is unclear if it is too late for the production to shoot the movie using 3D cameras, or if the same post production process will be used.
Also confirmed is that Zack Snyder’s badass fantasy action film Sucker Punch will be released in 3D. The movie has already completed principal photography, so the 3D will have to be converted in post.
I’ve heard the footage coming out of the three-dimensionalized Clash of the Titans looks amazing. Which is kind of a bit of a shock to me since I always felt post-production 3D looked flat and fake (see the live action elements of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland for example).
Regular Green Lantern comics scribe Geoff Johns has today tweeted about his trip to “Green Lantern town a.k.a. New Orleans!!”. According to his first tweet “Ryan IS Hal. And Mark Strong is going to be a brilliant Sinestro” and according to his second, “Kilowog, the Guardians, Oa…all breathtaking. The age of Green Lantern is upon us!!”
So, we’ve learned that he’s fond of double exclamation marks, even when operating under a 140 character limit, and that Mark Strong has indeed taken the role of Sinestro. Back on January 15th he was “in talks”.
Sinestro, if you’re not aware, is a Green Lantern corps. instructor turned nemesis of Hal Jordan. the story’s hero. It’s the sort of thing Strong could do in his sleep.
Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption, Mystic River, The Player) has been cast in Martin Campbell’s big screen adaptation of the DC Comics superhero Green Lantern.
According to Heat Vision, Robbins will play Senator Hammond, a former astronaut and the disapproving father of the movie’s villain, Dr. Hector Hammond (played by Peter Sarsgaard). The doctor comes in contact with a meteor and becomes infused with psychic powers, genius level intellect, and telekinetic abilities. As far as I can tell, Robbins’ character was not featured in the comic series, and is a creation for the film adaptation (and from what I understand, nbot a large role in the movie). I’m sure one of our comic experts will weigh in. At very least, the character was not a sizable role in the mythology.
The rest of the announced cast thus far includes Ryan Reynolds as the title character, Green Lantern, and Blake Lively as his love interest, Carol Ferris. Green Lantern is set to begin shooting in New Orleans this March, with the film scheduled to hi theaters on June 17th 2011.
It’s worth remembering that the creation of concept art takes place specifically to explore a wide range of possibilities and to see which design routes will best suit the production, and as such, a piece of concept artwork does not necessarily represent the look of the film. Having said that, such images can sometimes reveal a little about the thought processes taking place, and the approach of the artists who are in the production’s employ.
After the break are a series of alleged design drafts for Martin Campbell’s upcoming Green Lantern picture. They reveal one possible look of some of the alien characters for the film, a look which will either get you excited or leave you despairing. Either way, don’t forget that a) the provenance of these images has not been fully proven and b) they might not be the preferred designs anyway.
Campbell recently said that Kilowog, Abin Sur and Tomar-Re would all appear in the film.
This is the reported design for Kilowog:
And here’s Abin Sur and two images of Toma-Re:
The Kilowog images first appeared on Cosmic Book News, the others on the Green Lantern Corps. message board. This is fairly compelling evidence that the images are of legitimate origin, seeing as the style is consistent throughout. I’m buying into this 99% myself.
In strongly related news, Variety have now revealed who will be creating the FX work for the picture. I’ve very often been disappointed in the CG work of Sony Imageworks but I’ll always be prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt, and besides, Kent Houston of Peerless and Karen Goulekas of KEG FX will also be bringing their teams in to work some shots and I like those guys a great deal.
It’s looking likely from all of the aliens on display that the Green Lantern picture isn’t going to be fully earthbound and that we’ll also be headed for Oa. Indeed, in another one of those MTV interview chunks (why can’t they just run the whole thing at once, the cheats?), Campbell said that ‘quite a bit’ of the film will take place outside of Earth’s atmosphere.
Images via Screen Rant
It seems like comic book fans are extremely excited for the big screen adaptation of Green Lantern. First there was that awesome Green Lantern fan-cut trailer starring Nathan Fillion, and when ir was announced Ryan Reynolds would be playing the Green Lantern, Josh MC crafted a cool photoshop showing what he might look like in costume. And yes, there have been other fan made trailers since. The latest fan-made Green Lantern movie creation comes from Deviant Art user Hyzack (found via filmschoolrejects) who created a faux movie poster for the upcoming comic book feature. Check out the full poster, after the jump.
The other day when Peter Sarsgaard was cast as Hector Hammond, the primary villain in Green Lantern, a few evidently took this as implicit confirmation that classic Green Lantern baddie Sinestro is not in the film. That isn’t the case, and HitFix has a great rundown on what role the eventually villainous Sinestro plays in the film, and in the series overall should the first film be successful enough to warrant another.
Drew’s piece is good, and kicks off with one point: that while he’s denied doing any screentests, Warner Bros. is keen to cast Jackie Earle Haley as Sinestro. As Drew says, “The groundwork is being laid in the first Lantern for a much larger role for Sinestro later on if this first movie does well, and they like the idea of continuing their relationship with Haley.”
And what of the character? Those familiar with various Green Lantern origin stories know that Sinestro isn’t a bad guy at the outset. He’s another member of the Green Lantern Corps (intergalactic peacekeepers, basically) whose methods are a bit more totalitarian than most. Eventually he becomes an antagonist.
Furthermore, Drew makes the film sound as if it could be packed with characters — “damn near continuity porn for comic fans,” he says. So Hector Hammond (Sarsgaard) is a primary villain, but there’s more. Ryan Reynolds‘ character Hal Jordan becomes Green Lantern after encountering a dying alien named Abin Sur, who was pursued to Earth by a foe named Legion — essentially an insectoid hive mind in a mechanical body. He’s in the film, and Drew hints at “another major villain” as well.
So there’s a lot to do. Which means that we may not see much of Sinestro in the movie, but as things stand now he’s evidently a part of the recipe. Better to set him up now, get the origin out of the way and then be able to go into a full-on Green Lantern / Sinestro conflict in another film.
If you want to take a character like Green Lantern, who in the public eye is decidedly second-string, and make a giant Iron Man-sized success out of him, you’ve got to have a cast that can make the material sing. So far Warner Bros. is doing well by hiring Ryan Reynolds to play Hal Jordan / Green Lantern and Blake Lively to play Carol Ferris, but that doesn’t quite stack up against nabbing Robert Downey, Jr. for Iron Man.
But WB and director Martin Campbell may have made the perfect move here by grabbing Peter Sarsgaard to play the film’s villain. And no, he’s not been cast as Sinestro.
THR’s Heat Vision blog reports that Sarsgaard is in talks to play Dr. Hector Hammond, “the pathologist son of a senator who is seen as a disappointment in his father’s eyes” and eventually develops powers of his own after contact with a meteor. Those powers include mind reading and mind control, depending on the version of Hammond in question. This is sounding like WB is hewing close to the Geoff Johns version of Green Lantern’s origin. Here’s the WikiPedia synopsis of Hammond as he appears in that story (possible spoilers inside):
[Hammond] claims to be Carol Ferris’ boyfriend. However, it is revealed that he is just a private consultant for Ferris Aircraft and that they had gone out to dinner, according to Carol, “on business”. While inspecting Abin Sur’s crashed aircraft, Hammond is affected by the meteorite fragment in its reactor. This leads to his brain growing bigger, and able to read minds, including Carol Ferris and Hal Jordan who Hammond deduces is the Green Lantern. His mental powers keep Hal from using his ring, and is only stopped when Sinestro encases his head in an energy bubble, cutting off his air supply.
With respect to Sarsgaard, this should be fantastic casting. The actor is incredibly versatile and can carry across all the requisite emotions for a great villain. He can be slyly secretive, jealously wounded, righteously angry and far more, all with utter art and the ability to convince. I’m imagining his turn in An Education amped up to superhero levels, and can’t wait to see it.
The search for an actor to play Green Lantern famously came down to a few big names: Ryan Reynolds, who got the job, as well as Justin Timberlake and Bradley Cooper. Trades are now saying that the hunt for a leading lady has been down to a few names as well, which is exactly as you’d expect it to be. There’s always a shortlist; no tentpole film gets made with a couple of names just picked out of the sky.
Current info says that the shortlist for Green Lantern’s primary female character Carol Ferris — an aerospace company exec and the woman who hires test pilot Hal Jordan, who becomes Green Lantern — included Keri Russell, Jennifer Garner and Blake Lively. The gig has gone to Lively, and she’ll prep to shoot the film in March in Louisiana.
This is pretty surprising. Lively has done well on Gossip Girl, but at 22 is rather young. THR says that, as written, Lively’s role is more appropriate for an older actress, but that Lively impressed everyone with both her audition and work in Ben Affleck’s new film The Town, now in post-production.
Her character is described by the trade as a woman who “who runs her father’s aerospace company and hires cocky test pilot Hal Jordan (Reynolds), who later becomes the intergalactic policeman Green Lantern. In the comics, the romance became complicated when an alien race bestowed her the power of a crystal called the Star Sapphire.” Most female leads in films based on male comic book characters don’t get powers of their own, so Lively could have a more interesting job than most.
We don’t know her exact character trajectory in the film, however. The script by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green has been kept generally under wraps, though THR reports that Michael Goldenberg is doing a rewrite now.
As the trade says the next big roles to cast are those of “the alien known as Sinestro” and Dr. Hector Hammond. Jackie Earle Haley has been rumored for Sinestro, who eventually becomes one of Green Lantern’s biggest antagonists. Hammond was described in the film’s casting call as “austere and impersonal,” “real ’scummy,’” and “a pathologist and also the son of a Senator.” With the shoot only ten weeks away, we’ll have names to attach to those characters soon.
There wasn’t any doubt that Warner Bros.’ Green Lantern would be going forward, but the film now has an official greenlight, says visual effects supervisor Karen Goulekas. “Green Lantern got the official green light today,” Goulekas announced on her blog. “And not a second too soon - only 10 weeks out from shooting!” While plenty of work has been done on the film, the green light allows money to really flow out to the production, so Goulekas and her crew now have two and a half months to get things together for a film that may include up to 1300 effects shots. [via SuperHeroHype]
Martin Campbell will direct Green Lantern, which stars Ryan Reynolds and is scheduled for release on June 17, 2011.
As today is a slow news day, I thought I’d pass along a couple small superhero film tidbits. Fangoria has learned that Joe Johnston is readying The First Avenger: Captain America for a June 2010 start. Sounds like we’ll begin hearing casting news shortly.
Meanwhile, there might not have been any recent casting developments for Warner Bros’ adaptation of Green Lantern, but SuperheroHype has learned some of the Oscar-winning crew hired for the production:
- Cinematographer Dion Beebe (Memoirs of a Geisha, Chicago, Equilibrium, Collateral)
- Production designer Grant Major and costume designer Ngila Dickson (Lord of the Rings trilogy)
- Art director François Audouy (Avatar, I Am Legend, Watchmen, Transformers, the Spider-Man” trilogy)
Sounds like the team is really shaping up.
