The Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern movie was DC’s Hulk 2003 of DC’s movies. Partly because both characters heavily feature the colour green. Mostly though, because both movies were absolutely terrible. Hulk can, perhaps, be cut a little more slack because it came out in the early days of the superhero movie revival. Back then, the basic formula for a decent superhero movie hadn’t been properly updated from the era of the classic Superman and Batman movies.
But twelve years on, Holywood has had plenty of practise making superhero flicks for the modern age. So it’s time for DC to move on from 2011’s mistakes and give us a Green Lantern for the modern era.
One interesting side effect of the failure of live action Hal Jordan is that it has left the door open for other bearers of the green light of courage. And the main, non-Hal Jordan, front runner for the role is the Green Lantern that non-comic readers are probably most familiar with; John Stewart.
In the comics, John spent years as the backup Green Lantern of Earth. But due to him being the Green Lantern that appeared in the wildly popular Justice League cartoon, he’s probably the Green Lantern best known by the movie-goers who don’t read the comics.
And while rumours of Chris Pine being cast as Hal Jordan continue to float around, the possibility of a John Stewart Green Lantern took a huge step forward yesterday when an interview with Tyrese Gibson and Collider.com confirmed that the Fast and Furious star is in talks with DC for a Lantern role;
“I’ve already had a couple of meetings at Warner Bros., so we’ll see what happens. I do believe that there needs to be more black superheroes out there, but that’s not even my motivation.”
” I feel like there’s a fanbase of fans out there waiting to see me put on this green suit and do my thing. So I would love to confirm something today but I can’t. We’ll just keep following up.”
So while nothing is confirmed, it looks like wheels are turning; more as it develops.
