The Green Lantern Must Shine!

I was going to write about BatFest today, but that will have to wait. I just finished reading this article at AICN and I had to comment.

Apparently the planned big budget, live-action Green Lantern movie that’s in the works, slated to star Ryan Reynolds and be directed by Martin Campbell (a great start right there), may be running into money trouble and, as a result, may not get made.

Warner Brothers studio heads, don’t be stupid! You own a pantheon of modern-day mythological gods called the DC Super Heroes. They contain some of the most well-known and archetypal characters in modern literature (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, ring any bells?).  And the archtypes don’t end with the big three, you’ve also got the first super-fast super hero (The Flash) and the first magic ring-bearing super hero (Green Lantern), among others. Any one of these characters (and several of your others) could be used to make movies (or movie franchises) that are both artistically and commercially gigantic successes!

Sure, you may have to take a few chances, but look what can be achieved. Look what your competitors at Marvel have done with Iron Man, for example. They took characters that I personally didn’t give much of a crap about in the comics and turned them into one of the greatest super hero movies ever made and a budding industry, to boot! If that doesn’t convince you to take a chance, look a little closer to home. What about your perrenial moneymaker, Batman. Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are certainly two more on the list of greatest super hero movies of all time. And how did they come about? You took a chance and allowed great artists to interpret great characters.

Now I’m not naive enough to suggest that there’s no way you can lose or screw this one up. That can happen with any movie. You could have done it already if you had used Jack Black as Hal Jordan. But now you have an actor that can play the role, and hopefully you’re no longer writing the movie as a comedy, so there are two bullets dodged.

What you will need to do is get yourself a perfect script. Easier said than done, of course. But it can be done. Iron Man did it. Both Batman movies did it. To do it you will need to make sure that the scriptwriter respects and loves the characters he or she is writing about, for one thing. Secondly, you will need them to understand the great potential of the characters and the universe they are writing about.

Green Lantern is the tale of a fearless man who thrives on action and adventure and is about to experience both on a level even he never dreamed of before. It’s a galactic level. It’s a Star Wars/Star Trek level, or bigger! And then, after experiencing things no man or woman has seen before, this guy comes back to Earth and realizes all the good he could do for his home planet with the power and knowledge he now possesses. It could be a movie as big as Batman Begins, even without the same level of name recognition.

Need inspiration? Check out Darwyn Cooke’s wonderful take on Hal Jordan in The New Frontier graphic novel. Hell, check out the last fifty years of DC Green Lantern comics! Or the tales of the Golden Age Green Lantern, which began in 1940.

Don’t let this opportunity slip by you, Warner/DC! Yes, you might have to spend more money than you originally planned to, but when you’re dealing with great art and great entertainment, the rewards can also be great. We’ve all seen that. We all know it’s true.

So, come on Warner Brothers! It’s time to put a hero into space! Remember, no fear!

The above image is (obviously) copyright DC Comics (not to mention a really cool cover by one of the best comic book artists of all time, Neal Adams!)

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