PeterDavid.net

Y'know...I always got the Ed Norton thing with G'Nort...but it wasn't untill this moment that I got the name aspect of the injoke.

I agree that the character of Green Lantern can be anybody, including a short chubby man. I would have been all for Jack Black. But still, Tom Welling cannot be Superman. I swear, he makes Clark Kent look like a putz. But can’t lay all the blame on him, it could the supporting actors or the lousy teen angst love tragedy that they portray. He would make a good Green Lantern though.

Who was it that said that comic book fans are some of the most conservative people?

That being said, there should be room for legitimate reservations when it comes to Hollywood's handling of these properties. It wasn't that long ago when we heard about the infamous Superman script with an intact Krypton, etc.,...

So is casting Jack Black a bad idea (I know, it seems like a moot question now)? No, if like Peter you recognize that the Corps defines diversity, and you've seen Black in roles where he lets some passion and reality shine through his schtick.

Or, yes, if you don't want a Green Lantern movie as much as you want a "I'm NOT Shallow" Hal Jordan movie. WHich is fair. We haven't seen a cool test pilot character on screen since...when?

I think a lot of the objection to the Jack Black Green Lantern comes from the fear that if this "comedic" version of Green Lantern bombed, it will prevent Hollywood from bankrolling another try at the Green Lantern concept for years. If a "Green Lantern" movie tanks, at least make it as close to the source material as possible!

I guess in my case, ignorance is bliss because until Peter's column today, I was totally unaware of the Jack Black "controversey" to begin with.
Right now I'm even more surprised that there hasn't been an outcry in the comic book between some combination of

!!!SPOLIER WARNING!!!

Terry having a power ring, the current series ending, Hal coming back for a mini, and then the title starting over with whomever the new GL will be.
Not that there is anything with Kyle or Terry as Green Lanterns, but you know how some fans can be, like Peter pointed out in his posting.
Meanwhile, if anyone can answer it, I have a Green Lantern question.
In hardcover there is part one of a Green Lantern novel featuring Kyle by Christopher Priest and Mike Baron out, but does anyone know what happened (if anything) to the Green Lantern installment of Pocket/Star books JLA paperbacks?
Besides there only being 4 of a planned 6 in release to date (Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and the JLA), I thought there was supposed to be a Green Lantern novel written by Denny O'Neil.
Any idea if something happened, or is it just not ready yet?

I think there's also the fear that if a "comedic" screwball Green Lantern is a huge success, it will lead to more movies based on comic franchises that stray further and further from the source material. We'd wind up with a "Birds of Prey" that's little different from the Charlie's Angels movies. (which, now that I think about it, I would watch)

Not that there is anything wrong with Terry or Kyle being Green Lanterns...

So much for my proof reading skills. :(

:(
Personally I just can't stand Jack Black, he's just not funny. He's nothing but a terrible attempt at Jim Belushi. So when I first heard the rumor I was less than thrilled.

Mentioning G'nort and all of the other silly GL's that have existed over the years is a good point but when I think of Green Lantern I'm thinking Hal Jordan or Kyle Rayner not Broccoli Head and I don't think I'm alone on that. I think if Warner Bros. wants their comic book properties to be taken seriously they should treat them with a little more respect. They have the same "funny papers" outlook as other "business men" have had in the past *cough Jemas cough*.

Any which way, movies based on DC characters haven't been doing so well. Batman Returns was the last decent DC movie out there. The other two Batmans were garbage and so was Catwoman. Superman has been in limbo for too long. So when I heard the rumor came about about Jack Black being a funny GL I really wasn't surprised, I just filed it away in my "What demographic is WB trying to cater to?" drawer and washed my hands of it.

To me, it's like saying since the fans accepted Bat-Mite we shouldn't be upset if they cast CarrotTop as Batman.

I like Jack Black. Hell, I even have the bootleg copy of Heat Vision and Jack! And I was never a big follower of GL, so I have no reason to be upset by this. But I can almost visualize what a Jack Black Green Lantern movie would be like and I don't know that it would make anyone happy. Why not just remake The Greatest American Hero, if we are just looking for an "everyman as Superman" concept?

PAD said:
"I personally wouldn't have minded the notion of an unlikely guy acquiring a power ring, using it for all the predictable, self-serving purposes until he slowly comes to realize the potential for heroism and the selfishness of using such power for his own ends"

*COUGH*guy gardner*COUGH*

Hey,
I think I saw this movie on TV when it was called "The Greatest American Hero."

"What is this inability that many fans have to be so unyielding in their preconceptions...especially in the case of Green Lantern, the most malleable concept in comics?"

In three words: Batman television show.
Actually, I'm with PAD. There's been plenty of "straight" superhero adaptations recently and more on the way. I see no reason why a decent movie couldn't be made taking the "Life of Brian" we're-not-making-fun-of-the-concept-but-the-flawed-human-beings-attached-to-it approach.

But it would be pretty hard to underestimate the amount of damage that TV show did to the psyches of comic book fans. While it was far from the only factor, that show had a huge effect on the public, making comic books seem so embarassing and juvenile that to this day, I would say that the majority of Americans see no inherent difference between your average Liefeld book and "Maus."
I can understand why fans don't want to head down that road again.
(Although I'm still not sure why we're here. The Spider-Man movies were the big summer events of this year and 2002, Batman was the biggest hit of '89. How can the majority have such love for these characters and such contempt for their source...?)

While I agree with Peter -- the GL concept is hardly one without room for fun and even silliness -- when you make a GL movie, ideally it would be about the character comic fans fell in love with, be he Hal or Kyle. And neither of them is particularly silly. Frankly, the GL concept itself isn't silly at all; it's essentially a glorified police force. Having 3600 members from different alien races gave the writers the freedom to have a little fun.

As for the issues some of us comic fans tend to have with film interpretations of our favorite characters, there's a certain element of justification to it. You mentioned the organic web-spinners. My problem with them was two-fold: one, it cuts out one of the most fun story elements from Spider-Man mythos -- experimenting with and running out of web fluid -- and two, if he became part spider, that's not where the spinnerets would go. Of course, it didn't prohibit me from enjoying Spider-Man immensely (and Spider-Man 2 even more). The only problem I actually had with the movie was the lack of banter. One of the fun things about Spidey is that when he's in a fight, he won't shut the hell up. Movie-Spidey was visually perfect, but disturbingly silent in fight scenes -- save for a somewhat inappropriate gay joke, he really didn't do any of that.

Actually, it's "Mogo."

Speaking for myself, GL makes for such great space opera that seeing it in any other genre (i.e., screwball comedy), even if it were an excellent iteration of that genre, would leave me with a "Yeah, but what if..." feeling. On the other hand, I now have a great idea for the franchise as a whole: Make every movie in a different genre. I can be space opera, II a murder mystery, III a romantic comedy, etc. Because the possibilities are endless, once you set up the basic trappings.

Can't speak for other fans, but for me the disappointment was Jack Black as a comedic Kyle Raynor. Kyle has never been set up as a comedic character. If they had wanted to do a different person with the Green Lantern ring, then go for it. The problem was the change of the underlying persona.

Just my $.02.

When I first heard of the JB GL story, I was still in my "they did WHAT to Catwoman" mode. My take on it is this:

We have all these long standing (over 60 years in some cases) beloved creations, many with very solid and interesting stories that have been told about them. Some carry deep seated themes that, regardless of the generation that is reading or writing them, remain true. When these properties get sold to Hollywood, all too often we get an "updating," or "a fresh approach to a tired, old character."

In the case of Batman, Superman, and heck, I'll throw in Spiderman, even though he's much younger, there's very little that needs to be updated. If these characters were "tired" or "old," they'd not each have mutliple books each month. They'd be struggling. So when some Hollywood producer (and see Kevin Smith's 2 DVD set for some really scary stories about Hollywood producers) thinks he can tell a story about one of "our" beloved comic book legends, I start to get worried. Because that attitude is what landed us with Batman Returns, and those other 2 films that I refuse to acknowledge (I'm still grieving for mainstream America's exposure to Bane....)

So, while maybe movies like Catwoman and a Jack Black Green Lantern could be entertaining and fun, in the back of my mind there's the thought that I'm being manipulated. Catwoman isn't Selina Kyle, not even Batman Returns Selina. The Studio has made up something entirely new, and stamped the Catwoman name on it for the recognition factor. But for the fact that they own the rights to the character, it's a violation of the copyright.

I'd feel the same for a Green Lantern that has Jack Black playing Hal Jordan or Kyle Rayner. If it were some other guy who gets a ring, I'd be fine. For some reason, when they start messing with continuity, changing significant facts, I get upset.

When I thought of Jack Black as Green Lantern I couldn't help but flash on Stallone as Judge Dredd. Now maybe Jack Black as Judge Dredd...

And speaking of miscasts, Jurgen Prochnow as Arnold Schwartzenegger?

Peter David: Yes, G'Nort, the long-standing member of the Lantern Corp who is nothing but a huge in-joke. He's a canine incarnation of Art Carney's Ed Norton. Not to be confused with that other height of seriousness, Ch'p, the Green Lantern squirrel. And then there's Mojo, the Green Lantern sentient planet. I mean, what the hell?!? Fans are willing to accept that there's a Green Lantern that's basically a giant piece of sentient broccoli, but they draw the line at a short chubby man?
Luigi Novi: The thing about those other Green Lanterns is that they’re extremely minor characters, whom the reader can easily ignore when looking at the greater tapestry of the Green Lantern stories they read. Even in stories in which they appear, they need not ruin the story, provided that our GL is kept intact.

Peter David: Speaking as a short chubby man, I take great exception to this. I like to think that I'm at least as worthy of a power ring as sentient broccoli.
Luigi Novi: And speaking as one myself (well, I’m 5’8”), I take no exception to this, but wonder if they were merely upset if Black were intended to be Hal Jordan. If he was an entirely new recipient of the ring, I think that could work as per your suggested character arc. But if Black were suggested as Jordan (fill me in if this is the case), then their ire might be justified.

Peter David: Then again, keep in mind that fans went nuts when Michael Keaton was cast as Bruce Wayne. And Spider-Man's web spinners were going to be organic.
Luigi Novi: Given that Keaton’s performance as Batman was the weakest, most uneven part of those films, that his Batman wasn’t the strong character I would’ve expected, and that in general, I’m one of those in the minority who didn’t care for Burton’s take on the character much more than Schumacher’s, I’d say they might’ve been justified.

Peter David: What is this inability that many fans have to be so unyielding in their preconceptions...especially in the case of Green Lantern, the most malleable concept in comics?
Luigi Novi: Perhaps their reactions are due to Hollywood’s spotty track record with adapting comic book characters to the screen. Even though Hollywood has done very well with the X-Men and Spider-man, its adaptations of Hulk, Batman, and Daredevil, to name a few examples, may be an indication that not filmmaker in Hollywood quite “gets” how to properly do an adaptation. Mind you, whether talk of Black as GL would’ve been another example of this, I don’t know.

My understanding is that Black wasn't just going to play "Green Lantern," he was going to play HAL JORDAN. I'm not sure if this was ever spelled out clearly but that was my assumption. And THAT would've been both tragedy and farce.

And I still think organic web-shooters were a bad idea, one that strains credibility even more than Peter Parker's ability to create his own mechanical web-shooters. It wouldn't have been THAT hard to make the latter credible. Brian Michael Bendis did it.

First of all, the rumors said he was going to play Kyle or Hal. Not somebody like Gnort. If he was to play average joe finding the ring, fine. But not Kyle or Hal.

Secondly, they shouldn't make the first movie a parody of the character. We are probably only going to see one Green Lantern movie ever. If they waste that on a parody, then I would be extremely disappointed. However, if the first Green Lantern film is a success and then they decide to make a parody of it, I don't think fans would have much of an issue.

But this would have been the only Green Lantern movie they are probably going to get so it better nail it.

Basically, when it comes to Green Lantern, you can never win completely. Everyone has their own idea of what GL should be like and they have a hard time accepting it any other way. It's the definition of "you can't please all of the people all of the time."

I remember once posting what I'd do if I wrote the Green Lantern comic on the GL message boards at dccomics.com. It utilized what I thought were the best parts of the Hal Jordan years and the Kyle Rayner years. Suffice it to say, the Hal fans hated it, the Kyle fans hated it. There may have been one guy who liked it. I don't know.

Now that I've said that, I have to say that I had trouble picturing Jack Black as most main GLs. Maybe a role as one of the Corpsmen, though. There are plenty of those who he could play. I actually love characters like G'Nort and Kilowog. G'Nort always struck me as one of those funny sidekick characters in cartoons. He may not be the smartest or the best out there, but he always tries to do what's best. Kind of like Xander from B:TVS or Joxer from Xena: Warrior Princess or almost any sidekick characters from Disney movies. You have to admire the amount of bravery and loyalty guys like that have. I didn't know he was supposed to be based on Ed Norton, though. You learn something new every day.

And I still think organic web-shooters were a bad idea, one that strains credibility even more than Peter Parker's ability to create his own mechanical web-shooters. It wouldn't have been THAT hard to make the latter credible. Brian Michael Bendis did it.

And how about the fact that Peter Parker isn't stinking rich by patenting them? Stan Lee handwaved this away early on by having the people Spidey tried selling the formula to say they didn't want an adhesive that would evaporate. Hello? A steel-strong adhesive that can be released in a wide range of configurations, shot at a distance or up close, and evaporates without a trace after an hour? The possibilities in the construction trade alone are limitless, let alone law enforcement, emergency rescue, medicine, mountaineering...It's one of those bits of illogic that we have to accept for the character to work, but I for one was quite happy to see it become a non-issue.

What makes the fans so unyielding, Mr. David? YOU have to ask that question, having been exposed to that attitude since you became a pro?

And X-Padre, I once mentioned the fact that science fiction fans tend to be very conservative (didn't talk about comic book fans).

In fact, it's more social conservatism than political, in this instance. There are people involved in genre entertainment that believe they have only ONE thing they can be good at, and they push it. So they become the protector of "their" Green Lantern or "their" Supergirl. You also get people in role playing that seek to defend "their" campaign from other people's ideas, and science fiction con organizers who defend "their" con against complaints from their attendees.

In other words, they invest a lot of their self-respect and identity in ONE fan venue, and like Elmyra from "Tiny Toons," they love it and hug it and squeeze it until it dies. The people they hate aren't doing things to "their" Green Lantern, they're doing it to THEM.

Bwah-ha-ha-hahahahahahahaha!

I think what got them all rilled up was the fact that Kyle Rayner was going to be played by the short chubby guy (as PAD puts it); and that all the Hal Jordan fans would've had a way to make fun of Kyle Rayner fans and gain the upper hand in their silly little flame wars.

I'm not really a fan of Jack Black. That said, it would be interesting to see a GL movie where a regular guy gets the ring. But, why can't a girl get the ring?

Anyway, my problem with this is that J. Michael Straczynski wrote a GL movie script years ago and submitted it. He said that it's sitting on someone's desk, just waiting to be read.

After watching Babylon 5, and reading Amazing Spiderman, I know what script I want to see made into a movie.

Unfortunately for Jack Black, I doubt it's a parody.

Pen Wing said:

But, why can't a girl get the ring?

Remember Arisia?

(Who, of course, paired with the totally non-humanoid Eddore, wa sone of the biggest in-jokes in the whole eries.)

Jason Schulman: And I still think organic web-shooters were a bad idea, one that strains credibility even more than Peter Parker's ability to create his own mechanical web-shooters.
Luigi Novi: Hold up, you accept a guy gaining the powers of a spider, including its strength, speed, reaction time, elevated eyesight, ability to stick to walls, etc., but not for his body to develop spinnerets? And being enough of a genius to create a synthetic formul and mechanical shooters is more credible than that? Why? What's not credible about a mutation that includes spinnerets, when you have no trouble accepting the other attributes of spiders? Well, to each their own.

Speaking only for myself, I was rolling my eyes and groaning at the possibility of Black as a GL not because he's an unlikely candidate...but because he's Jack Black.

The man's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, and casting him would have driven me away from a movie that I'd hope I'd like to see.

Just like he'll probably keep me away from Peter Jackson's "King Kong."

Speaking as a short chubby man, I take great exception to this. I like to think that I'm at least as worthy of a power ring as sentient broccoli.

I thought you were being retconned into a taller, more slimmed down PAD? I was just getting used to the new image! How dare you change my re-conceived idea of PAD2! I'm never going to read your book ever again!

Hand over the broccoli, though, I'm hungry.

This is going to make for serious thread drift, but...the organic webshooter thing doesn't really work for me because, even if I suspend disbelief for all the superpowers, there's no explanation for how Peter's body generates the webfluid to begin with, or why it shoots out of his arms instead of, y'know, where it normally does with spiders.

Why can't Peter sell the webfluid? Because it would become very obvious very quickly that the guy doing the selling was Spider-Man. ("Gee, funny how this adhesive looks kinda like a spider's web...hey wait a minute...") It's just another part of the crummy Parker luck: he's brilliant and he can't even get rich because of it.

hhhmmmmm.... well, for my totally unsolicited comments.....

When I first heard the rumour, I thought it was a silly idea. Not that GL was to be any one person in particular, but that it was to be a comedy. And I suppose that is what most (or some at least) folks were objecting to.

Sure, GL has its comedic side. What comic about a guy punching out bad guys with giant green boxing gloves (that wouldn't harm anyone wearing a yellow rain slicker) couldn't have a comedic side. And, yes, the GL Corps has its share of broccoli-headed, squirrel-bodied, planet-sized...well, planets, but they were (almost) always the comedy relief. Kinda like if someone originally wanted to make a movie about 'Wild Bill' Hikock (sp?), but then just before shooting decided it would be better to have the movie be really about 'Jingo' (ouch! Old-Time Radio alert!)

Not to mention the old adage about how the fans grew up with these characters (Hal and Kyle) and, though the person behind the mask (inside the ring?) might change (Hal, John, Guy, Kyle, heck even Batman put on the ring a time or two), the tone was still more heroic and serious rather than comedic (well, Guy not so much, but you get what I mean).

Now, let's face it, if you had a more traditional take on GL, and threw in some broccoli or a giant diamond wearing the ring in the background, that would be funny and look really really cool onscreen! But as the principal story line and tone? I dunno, if there was enough of a story arc (finding out that the comedic lead actually had a real heroic side, although with the tradition of Hollywood movies on this type of subject, he would have to lose that ring during a major battle or something to prove he really is a hero), it might work. But I totally get the objections, and I'd rather see a more 'serious' (? is that a good word for a comic book movie?) take on the character.

But, rather than Hal (or John, or Guy, or even Kyle), I'd MUCH rather see a GL movie about Alan Scott!! No GL Corps, no freakin-out-over-yellow, just a good old fashioned tale of a railroad engineer and his problems with wood (is there a penis joke in there somewhere? I can never tell)

Having said all that, here is a bit from an old issue of...I dunno, Mad or Crazy or Cracked, on of those magazines. They were publishing a bunch of super-hero limericks, in an issue back in the seventies, and I can for some reason still quote most of them:

Green Lanterns' a powerful fellow,
except when his enemy's yellow,
His nightmare is that
He'll die in a vat
Of Lemon and Pineapple Jello.

(sorry, I'm terribly terribly sorry, horrible limerick, my bad, really :) )

I only have two objections to Jack Black being Green Lantern, and the first is that it doesn't gel with any of the recognizable figures in the GL mythology. He's not Hal Jordon, Kyle Rayner, or John Stewart. But then, everything I know about Green Lantern I learned from Duck Dodgers. My second objection is admittedly an unfair one. When I think of Jack Black in a movie role, I don't think of a quality movie. I think "School of Rock" was his only good starring role. Heck, it was good enough for me to go see it in the theatres two more times and by the DVD, so obviously he has the potential to be a great performer. I think the reason people are having such a strong reaction to Jack Black as Green Lantern has more to do with him being over-the-top and his films tending toward the awful. I can only hope their reasons aren't as shallow as, "A fat man can't be a hero." Still, if someone put enough care into the story and reigned in Black's tendency to act like a cartoon character, I think it could be a movie worth seeing. If a certain little black duck can do it justice, why not him?

"But it would be pretty hard to underestimate the amount of damage that TV show did to the psyches of comic book fans. While it was far from the only factor, that show had a huge effect on the public, making comic books seem so embarassing and juvenile that to this day, I would say that the majority of Americans see no inherent difference between your average Liefeld book and "Maus." "

What damage? That TV show did more to put comic books into the consciuosness of mainstream North America than anything before or since. So much so in fact that at it's height the Batman title sold an average of 1,180,000 copies per month! We should be so lucky nowadays to have a FRACTION of those sales per month! (So where did all those copies go, huh?)

Sorry, but you sell folks short if you believe that they can't discern Liefeld from Spiegelman.

Now, as to GL:
The comic should have a "mini-crisis" and ditch some of the aliens. (Besides, I always preferred Brussel Sprouts to Broccoli.)

If they do the movie tongue-in cheek, you'll wind up with something like Spaceballs. Yuck!

As to actors: Well, the obvious choice might be the WWE's Hurricane. After all, he's already playing the part every week, and he's got a decent physique to pull it off.

(That oughta get me some nasty replies!)

And for those of you who enter spelling bees regularly or irregularly, it's "consciousness", not whatever the heck I posted just now up there somewhere....sigh...

I mean, what the hell?!? Fans are willing to accept that there's a Green Lantern that's basically a giant piece of sentient broccoli, but they draw the line at a short chubby man?

I think it has less to do with him being "a short cubby man" and more to do with him being a talentless buffon.

Then again, keep in mind that fans went nuts when Michael Keaton was cast as Bruce Wayne. And Spider-Man's web spinners were going to be organic.

Both of which were and still are bad moves. Keaton was mis-cast in the part, plain and simple. Of course, that was the least of Burton's Batman's problems. That movie is enormously over rated. And the change in Spider-man has the effect of drastically changing the character because the movie makers couldn't concieve of a teenager inventing web-shooters. Sure, he can gain the powers of a spider & sew a costume like a pro, but web-shooters is where we draw the realism line...

What is this inability that many fans have to be so unyielding in their preconceptions...

Yeah, how dare people expect film adaptations to respect and resemble the source material. What a bunch of morons...

[/]Then again, keep in mind that fans went nuts when Michael Keaton was cast as Bruce Wayne. And Spider-Man's web spinners were going to be organic.[/B]

Um, I still don't like the organic webshooters!

I don't mind the idea of Black being GL so much as the movie being a comedy. A good movie based on comics does have it's funny moments. However, I think a comedy would be a bad idea considering that the general public still thinks that the 60's Bat-Man TV show is an acurate portrayal of comics.

"Why can't Peter sell the webfluid? Because it would become very obvious very quickly that the guy doing the selling was Spider-Man. ("Gee, funny how this adhesive looks kinda like a spider's web...hey wait a minute...") It's just another part of the crummy Parker luck: he's brilliant and he can't even get rich because of it."

Nonsense. What, he's so brilliant that he couldn't conceive of the following?--

POTENTIAL BUYER: This fluid and firing device is astounding! A non-lethal form of containment; it's a policeman's dream! You know...it seems familiar somehow...

PETER: It should. I gave it to Spider-Man to field test. We cut a deal: I gave him the web equipment, and he made sure I'd know where he was going to be so I could photograph him in action and make some money while he worked out the kinks in the webbing.

POTENTIAL BUYER: Very smart. Here's a check for 10 million dollars...

Give me the organic webbing any day. Then again, I came up with Spider-Man having organic spinerettes in his forearms ten years ago (not to mention talons on his fingers.) It was called "Spider-Man 2099." So I'm pretty comfortable with the concept.

PAD

What Peter doesn't know is that I pitched that very plot about Spider-Man selling his webbing (Warren Worthington III (Angel) was the front man) as part of a novel in the same publishing program that produced "What Savage Beast". Marvel nixed it.

One of these days...

Just throwing in my 2 euros on the Jack black as GL.First I despise Jack Black!His whole over the top,look at me im wacky schtick just annoys the hell out of me.Only movie he was in that I enjoyed was the Jackal where Bruce Willis smokes him with a big ass gun.Like others i feel if he was A Green lantern i could deal ,not THE green lantern(Kyle,Hal,John,Guy,Alan).
My other issue is the need for some people to revamp an establishes character for change's stake,and the need to cast a the "hot"person of the moment in a role.An example being the rumors a few months ago that Beyonce was going to be Lois Lane, Ashton Kutcher as Superman and Jessica Simpson as a Bond girl.WHAT?!?
Even more ridiculous was the suggestion on some of the boards on aint it cool news suggesting if Superman is cast as a black man(Will Smith)it proves Hollywood is racist.No it just means they are sticking with the tradition of the character.
Back to the original thread,Jack Black and his wackiness would overwhelm the story of Green Lantern in my opinion.Nothing against short chubby guys ,im a tall muscular guy who could be a chubby guy if i dont workout:)
Casting call
Hal :George Eads(CSI)/Older version Bruce Willis
Kyle :The kid from American Beauty(chris coopers son)
John :Younger version /J.August Richards
older / Avery brooks(look at justice
league unlimited)
Alan: Kiefer Sutherland
Oh by the way ,just saw the cast for the Fantastic four movie,except the torch.I like it
besides im I so in love with Jessica Alba :)

Looks like you've covered everything. As I was reading the comments I thought about asking how much you all hated "Duck Dodgers Meets the Green Lantern Corps", or of claiming the the ONLY Green Lantern is Alan Scott, with a magick ring, a weakness against wood and one of the wackiest costumes ever drawn. (And wouldn't the Jack Black haters love to see him in a poufy scarlet blouse, green tights and a yellow and purple cape?)
But it's all been said.
Let me just mention this, though I very much doubt there are any Jim Shooter fans here. If you want a property in which a dying alien grants a human unlimited power and the flawed human proceeds to misuse the power for personal gain and other frivolity, forget DC and talk to Marvel. It's called "Star*Brand" and it was part of the short lived "New Universe" line of titles.
My opinion was that the Shooter written issues were brilliant and self-effacing (the character was supposed to be semi-autobiographical, and although he made himself handsome, there were still a ton of chatracter flaws). The second half of the series wasn't good enough to give you your moneys worth out of a quarter-box, though. They turned it over to one of Marvel's house artists, a guy who was popular at the time but wasn't much of a writer.
Unlike most characters in tights, Star*Brand was designed to be fashionable, which makes his costume look weirdly dated now, so he'd have to be redesigned for a movie, (sort of the way they gave Blade a make-over). And instead of a ring his power-icon was a movable tattoo (?!?). Tattoos are so '90s, maybe they could update it and make it something he could wear in a piercing - that way it would be logical that he can move it from location to location.
Now I could see Jack Black in a Star*Brand movie. But he's no Alan Scott.

Sorry meant to say if Superman is NOT cast as a black man it proves Hollywood is racist.Damn Insomnia ruins the thought process.By the way Julian Mcmahon may be Dr Doom.That man has the best luck in roles.Charmed he was linked with Alyssa Milano's character,Nip /Tuck he is a big time player with the ladies and now he may get to work with Jessica Alba.Life just aint fair

Peter, you do realize it'd probably work like this:

POTENTIAL BUYER: This fluid and firing device is astounding! A non-lethal form of containment; it's a policeman's dream! You know...it seems familiar somehow...

PETER: It should. I gave it to Spider-Man to field test. We cut a deal: I gave him the web equipment, and he made sure I'd know where he was going to be so I could photograph him in action and make some money while he worked out the kinks in the webbing.

POTENTIAL BUYER: Very smart. Here's a check for 10 million dollars...

POLICE: Peter Parker, you're under arrest for assisting a known vigilante [or whatever Spidey's accused of this week...burglarly, murder, etc. Yes I know he was an Avenger -- how long did that last? And who besides the Feds knew?]

I've been known to disagree with John Byrne, but on this one, he's right:

"Even without getting into the fact that the bio-webbing comes from the wrong part of Parker's body, and even without pointing up the fact that bilateral symetry means he should also have webspinners in his ankles, and even without wondering where the heck it comes from, and where he is storing it in his body, and how fast it regenerates -- will he never again run out of webbing at an inappropriate moment? 'Realistically', he can't -- the bio-webbing
version runs out of web fluid forty stories up and we don't see a desperate scramble to slip another pack of web-fluid into the mechanical shooter. We see Spider-Man fall to his death."

Oh, and Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne never felt like Bruce Wayne as we've seen him in comics. The "Bruce Wayne" from the 1989 BATMAN film was interesting in his own right, but neither physically nor in terms of personality was he the Bruce Wayne we've read about for years. Hell, the 1960s TV show got it closer!

For me, the main concern for the GL movie rumor wasn't Jack Black as the lead, but rather fear of DC's recent track record for comics movies. Let's see, last year, when Marvel brought out Daredevil, X-Men 2, and Hulk, the weakest of which (Daredevil) did just over a hundred million in theaters, DC's lone offering was a horribly bastardized offering of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. This year, when Marvel brings out the 800 pound gorilla of Spider-Man 2, DC responds by giving us a bastardized version of Catwoman. And you're wondering why people would be nervous about a comedic version of Green Lantern?

Wow. I guess I was right about the conservative lean of comic book fans. When you pair this comparatively light discussion with the ongoing battle over DC's Identity Crisis, then you see a lot of people are hungry for something...anything...to be invulnerable to change.

To anyone who doesn't think it's important having just the right actor/interpretation for an established character, I have five words:

JUSTICE LEAGUE live action movie.

Heck, even Green Fire (or whatever she's called this week) didn't work right. Long recognized as the cheesecake character of the group, the actress playing her clearly wasn't all that comnfortable in the role and it fell flat ... so to speak. Never mind the Mr Science geek portrayal of Ray 'The Atom' Palmer and the really silly-looking version of his costume. They even screwed up Guy 'GL' Gardner, having him more like Jordan than Gardner.

As for someone else mentioning somebody else "finding the ring", no, no, no. It isn't a case of "Mommy, look what I found in my box of Cracker Jacks today." The GL rings are more akin to the Lens of Arisia [See LENSMAN series of novels by E.E. Smith]. They're meant for very specific people.

I have nothing against parodies. I wouldn't be in the middle of reading TONG LASHING if I did. GL parodies? I love G'nort. In small doses. He was hilarious in the Mister Miracle issue where Scott and Barda call him in to help against some two-bit racketeers for example.

But a film franchise built around something like that? When we could have a serious galactic-scale space opera instead?

And I certainly wouldn't mind seeing Arisia [GL version] on screen.

Jason - "And I still think organic web-shooters were a bad idea, one that strains credibility even more than Peter Parker's ability to create his own mechanical web-shooters."

Unless he's a very specialized idiot savant, anyone who is smart enough to create such fine-crafted devices and equally amazing web fluid to use in them - in his bedroom while still a teen, yet - is just NOT going to have ANY trouble making the rent.
It's one of the things Byrne got right when he took over the FF years back. Fed up with the landlord's bothersome interruptions, Reed just up and bought the building outright. Let's face it, anyone who can build dimensional gateways in their attic just aren't going to have cashflow problems. Same thing with Spidey - IF you give him mechanical webshooters.

Denzel Washington gave a great interview in Shootout last Sunday (not this Sunday past) and to paraphrase him "I'm not gonna give you 100 million dollars so you can film your vision of G'nort".

Let's do Green Lantern the right way first and if you want to include G'nort, fine. If he's funny and 'steals the movie' you can sequel him later ala "Electra". If he's not he becomes another J'ar J'ar.

Thing is: You can get people to invest in a movie about a Green Lantern that is based on Art Carney's Ed Norton ... then your salesman skills are in league with a person selling a refrigerator to an eskimo.

You're that good.

See, I have no real problem with Jack Black being Kyle or using GL as a semi-comedic movie, but the initial description I read was a slapstick comedy, which just sounded lame. But, I am a big fan of Adam West Batman, so a big part of me was still interested in this project ;)

Since The StarWolf brought it up, does anyone know if the Justice League pilot was ever filmed for CBS' rejection, err..., I mean consideration a couple of years ago?
BTW: Guess no one knows the answer to my inquiry about the status of a Denny O'Neil Green Lantern prose paperback. :(

Why doesn't Peter Parker sell the web-fuild formula and make a million dollars?

The same reason being exposed to radiation gives people super-powers and not cancer: Its A COMIC BOOK.

Keep in mind that Peter Parker is also living in world with Reed Richard, Tony Stark, Hank Pym, etc etc...

His webbing is probably not that impressive compared to some of the stuff those other guys can make.

re: Justice League Pilot. Yes it was filmed. You can find it at any con bootleg video seller.
Guy Gardner in it isn't so much Guy as Booster Gold's personality, iirc correctly. (I think Booster and Beetle were tied up in a proposed Blue & Gold movie/TV series deal).

re: New Universe Just FYI, PAD was one of the original NU writers (MERC) and one of the final ones (Justice). And Shooter's replacement on Star Brand could hardly be called "one of Marvel's house artists, a guy who was popular at the time but wasn't much of a writer". Like him or hate him, John Byrne is a bit more than a Marvel house artist.

re: Peter and patents. If Peter can't figure out the solution that PAD gives him, I'm sure his friendly neighborhood patent advisor..Reed Richards..could help him out with it.

re: Reed, Tony, et al. but none of them make the webbing and so forth. Peter is supposed to be one of those top brains, just without the breaks.

re: belivability of achievement. In the second movie, they make a huge deal out of how ground breaking Otto's physics experiment is going to be..ignoring the momunmental breakthrough in cybernetics that the arms represent.

Ah, yes...the cultural fetishists and embalmers start to strike again.

Folks DO realize that this is one reason that PAD's Supergirl series didn't do as well as it should have; i.e., it wasn't EXACTLY like the Silver Age Supergirl?

POLICE: Peter Parker, you're under arrest for assisting a known vigilante [or whatever Spidey's accused of this week...burglarly, murder, etc. Yes I know he was an Avenger -- how long did that last? And who besides the Feds knew?]

Who besides the Feds knew? Anyone at or watching the press conference when the Avengers unveiled their new U.N. charter and announced Spidey as one of the active reservists. :-)

"The same reason being exposed to radiation gives people super-powers and not cancer: Its A COMIC BOOK."

Hey, if Stan Lee says radiation gives you superpowers, I for one am going to believe him. I grew up in a town with a nuclear power plant nearby, and there are guys in tights zipping all over the place. OK, no there aren't. If there were, I would still live there, and would likely have moved as close to the nuke plant as possible. I'm still waiting for a superhero (or even better, a supervillain for me to fight!) to emerge from my hometown.

Actually, the outcry over the GREEN LANTERN movie is probably nothing compared to what we're going to hear about the FANTASTIC FOUR movie once more gets known about it.

According to the latest COMIC BUYER'S GUIDE (which I don't have at my side), the FF movie, to be directed by the director (or writer?) of the original BARBERSHOP will be treating the film as a family comedy. There will be little emphasis on the FF's super-powers. And Doctor Doom is going to be a rejected lover.

If I were the studio, I'd be rethinking this heavily, if for no other reason than it sounds like Disney/Pixar will be beating them to the punch with THE INCREDIBLES later this year. (Check out the story in the 8-11-04 edition of USA TODAY and see.)

There are a couple of ways I would see a Green Lantern movie working out, but all of them deal with the huge learning curve of the most powerful weapon in the universe. When Wizard did their "proposal" for an Ultimate style revamp of DC characters, their take on John Stewart was very much "Training Day" inspired, with Sinestro playing Denzal's part. A similar approach could be taken if the main emphasis of the movie were the police nature of the Corp.

If the focus were the random guy angle, it could be the Kyle Rayner route of an alien popping up out of no where and giving this guy a ring without any explanation. Now, in this case I would use Sinestro playing the role that Hal had in the comics, with the movie following Kyle's discovery of the Corp.'s existence and its destruction at the hands of Sinestro, along with the eventual confrontation between the two.

Alternatively, they could follow Alan Scott finding out the power of the lantern and figuring out what to do with it (in this case I would hold off on the power ring until later in the movie, in favor of actually holding the lantern for the first two acts). Alan Scott's struggle could be with the Lantern itself, as it's evil energies try to seduce him with him eventually conquering them and making its powers his own.

If the angle were to be a chosen individual, you would have to go with Hal. Show him like he was in JLA Year One, as a hotshot with good intentions. He's completely without fear, so have him go headfirst into a situation that puts him in over his head. His nature causes his life to fall apart (loses job with airforce, etc.) and he gets the ring in time to help him pick up the pieces while dealing with a huge threat. And he never bats an eye.

As far as ring weakness goes, either just go with the whole "he has to stay focused for it to work" angle or go with something more logical and consistant. In an Elseworlds I once read (this was back when every annual was an elseworlds one year) the ring was based on magic (perfect for Alan Scott) and the weakness was iron (as tradition would tell us). I thought this was a nice touch of folklore in the story.

The real question about Jack Black as Green Lantern, or Spidey's web shooters, is: Does it work? Can the fans see it and not have it ruin the willing suspension of disbelief? In the Jack Black case, the answer is no.

I'm not a huge fan of Jack Black. I think his roles suffer from Adam Sandler Syndrome (which makes for a very accurate acronym), where the character is a jerk or a screw-up, but he's so cool and everyone else is so stiff or (shudder) responsible that we're supposed to root for the schmuck. The only time I've really liked Jack Black was in HIGH FIDELITY, where he wasn't the star and didn't turn into a great hero at the end.

Jack Black *might* make a funny, comic-relief Green Lantern who helps introduce Hal or Kyle to the corps. I don't see heroism coming from him; if anything, I'd be afraid he'd be the smart-ass who "teaches" the Oans to lighten up and party. This, coupled with his physical differences from the characters, would make him an awful choice to play the role.

(And, sorry PAD, but physical details are important in casting. The actor doesn't have to be a perfect match -- Keaton didn't look like most illustrations of Bruce Wayne and Halle Berry was the first black version of Catwoman, but the castings worked great -- but they matched the basic physical traits quite well. For an example of how to do this wrong, think of seeing Chris O'Donnell as a Robin just as tall as Batman -- ow!)

As for the question of Spider-Man's webshooters, I think *both* versions work. While there are plenty of logical arguments for how the comic-book version's shooters should have made Peter Parker a ton of cash, that never got in the way of enjoying the comic, or Peter's struggles with finances. As for the movie, if I can believe spider bite can let someone leap from building to building, scramble up and down walls very easily, and gain the strength of many people, then why not shoot out webbing like the creature that bit him? Works for me!

James Lynch: "The actor doesn't have to be a perfect match -- Keaton didn't look like most illustrations of Bruce Wayne and Halle Berry was the first black version of Catwoman, but the castings worked great -- but they matched the basic physical traits quite well."

So, Eartha Kitt as Catwoman was just a mass-hallucination?

Seriously, I have to disagree that either Berry or Keaton were good casting choices. Keaton's Wayne was a babbling idiot while I think the box office returns on Catwoman are apple proof about that choice.

As for Jack Black. I have no problem with the idea of doing Green Lantern as a humorous slant, but that would require casting someone who was actually funny. I went to see School of Rock once. I walked out in the middle, something I never did before.

He was that bad.

I put him in the same category as Ashton Kutcher: No talent, lots of attitude, and has yet to even have a staring role in a movie that hasn't bombed. Kutcher can at least say that he keeps getting roles because he's nailing Demi Moore.

What excuse does anyone have for hiring Jack Black.

ok...i haven't read the previous 60 comments (forgive me this time...it's after midnight and it's been a long week)...so I apologize in advance if I'm repeating something that's already been said.

With the disclaimer out of the way...

I don't think it's the notion of Jack Black being -a- Green Lantern that was upsetting. It was the notion of Jack Black being -the- Green Lantern (and just to stir the pot I'll throw out that -the- Green Lantern is Hal Jordan). Jack can play G'Nort or Kilowog or the planet.

I'd love to see a GL movie...but I'd really want it to be a GL movie about Hal.

Apologies to Kyle/Alan Scott/G'nort fans.

Charlie

Sometimes I agree with creators about fan reaction, sometimes I don't. I think PAD is giving his opinion as a creator becaue I beleive you missed the point.

I remember the reaction to Michael Keaton. They made the grand announcement at the time when Frank Miller completely changed the way comics were done with his Batman. The reason was not about being "purest" it was about respecting the material.

We are the fans. We are the base for these things. Without us, like it or not, you guys wouldn't have work in this field. Of course you shouldn't listen to every single thing we say. Of course we are going to be unreasonable about silly crap. But there's a difference between reasonably wanting to see a series respected and just being plain unreasonable about the color of a costume of the death of a major character.

The buzz was not that Jack Black was going to play "A" Green Lantern, but he would probably name himself Hal Jordan - at least that's what I read on Moviephon.com, Entertainment.com and JoBlo.com. If Jack Black wanted to play G'Nort, no problem. But Hal Jordan? Then we'd be getting another Tim Burton nightmare or Halle Berry crap fest.

And for us "To old to be reading these things" fan we remember the age old struggle of people calling comics crap. As if just because it had pictures there was no reason to take it seriously.

Well Mr. David, you are one of those people who came along and demonstrated how serious it could be. You and Miller and Millar and Waid and Moore produced stuff that we could hand over to non-readers and they would go "Oh crap, that was better then I thought it was."

Okay, maybe at times we might take it too serously. I'm with you there. But it what we love, just like its what you love. When Marvel did the cross over and interfeared with your Hulk, you gave you little complaint about it a fanzine. I was reading it thinking, "Dang, I like some of Marvel's cross overs, but I'd hate to loose Peter David on the Hulk becuase of it." But no where did I read anyone say to you "Hey, you're taking marvel too seriously, maybe you should just write something else like books." Or something to that effect.

And when they do Spider-man, and do the Hulk and do Superman or the Shadowm and try to take it seriously, try to remember there is a reason why comics sells and there things that just work if you just try it, it shows. The Jack Black movie would have tanked, and Batman was only lucky because of massive name recognition, and Catwoman made me proud to be a fanboy with how we didn't support that trash.

No one is saying "make it absolutely perfect." What we are saying is "Respect the material." Even Jack Black fans (one of which I am, I think the guy's got something special going for him) groaned on that one.

After all, if they decided to do your arc, I wouldn't want to them to make it silly and stupid and not represent the awesome job you did on the incredible hulk just becasue they are afraid people might not get it. It a dice roll. And you win best when you take it seriously, not just roll any way you want to.

Umar,

While your basic thrust, "respect the material", is something everyone here could probably get behind in principle, you're overlooking one fundamental problem:

If you ask six people what the above phrase means, you'll get ten different answers.

Example: you apparently consider the Tim Burton Batman a travesty. I don't -- while I had some quibbles with it, I thought it caught the essence of the character beautifully and created a Gotham I could buy into. I had my doubts about Keaton going in, but he worked.

(The Keaton objection always struck me as somewhat similar to what happened when Whoopi Goldberg first signed onto TNG as Guinan. Lots of people -- myself firmly included -- were not happy about the idea, but she took it seriously and did a lot of solid work.)

I've seen folks on Usenet who think the Spider-Man films were complete crap. I don't agree with them either.

So who exactly gets to decide what "respect the material" means?

As for Jack Black as GL ... honestly, I don't have much of an opinion on this one. I read very little DC growing up, and still read almost no DCU stuff, so I have no special attachment to this character. From what I've read of the Hal Jordan GL, I don't think Black would work as that particular Lantern, so if that was the plan I'd certainly have doubts. But I'd have to see a lot more than just a single name before I could decide ahead of time that it'd be trash.

TWL

TWL

I believe there's an appropriate response to things and an inappropriate. I know this too is subject to opinion and interpretations, but I would like to think that we comic readers/fanboys are somewhat on the same page about the over all nature of the art.

And you are absolutely right when you say that "repecting the medium" depends upon interpretation. I guess that's the number one reason why the creators should not just listen to every single thing we fans want - they'd never get anything done at all.

I forgot the Whoopie contraversy. I remember I didn't understand it at the time. Let me preface my next words by saying I have absolutely no respect for Whoopie and what she does for too many reason to even start on here. But when they announced that she's have a roll and a lot of Sci-Fi fanboys went a little nuts (sci-fi fanboys always seem to have a problem with women in leading of too big a roles. Just something I noticed) I didn't get it because the show had not come out yet and you didnt really know at the time if it was going ot be good or a piece of crap.

The difference with comics is that these are established characters with a huge fanbase and plenty of stories to draw from if you wanted to make a cartoon or a movie. There's no need to go outside these stories. And when they do it doesn't work. (Catwoman, anyone?) Batman made a kinda half hearted attempt to stay within certain traits, but I have to agree to disagree about whether they got Batman right in anyway except the emblem. And that movie got lucky on pure name recognition alone. Like the first Star Trek movie (another movie where they had the characters but for some reason did not even try to think about what made Star Trek work to begin with.) If people did not know Star Trek that movie would have tanked bigger then Last Action Hero. And when they decided to go back to the roots (Wrath of Khan) the reaction was overwhelming.

It might be up to interpretation, but if you when to see Flash and it was about a guy name Chuck Allen who could make light bulbs brighter and lived with his mother and worked as a fish scaler on the docks - I don't care how you interpret it that just plain wrong.

Sometime we fans react inappropriately about what we want. That's without a doubt. In the case of Green Lantern and Catwoman I think we reacted appropriately. At least enough to get the studio to go back and rethink what they were about to do. And to that I say, good for us.

Umar,

I think you sort of missed the point. You thought Burton's Batman was lousy; quite a number of people thought differently. You thought Hulk worked pretty well; lots of people thought it was dreadful. I've heard wildly varying opinions on Daredevil. Granted, the best statements about Catwoman seem to be "I thought it'd be worse" :-), but you're going to get agreement once in a while.

As for Trek ... while the first film had a whole bunch of flaws mostly due to things like pacing, saying the second one fixed the problem by "getting back to the roots" is really out there, IMO. I absolutely adore the second film, but it didn't so much go back to the roots as force the characters to grow up and change. When did the series-era Kirk ever worry about aging? About liaisons he'd left behind? About consequences? The brilliance in that film was moving beyond the characters' status quo, not returning to it.

(Perhaps you mean something different by "go back to the roots" than I'm reading. If so, please elaborate.)

Regardless, I don't think you've really addressed my question. Who gets to decide what "respecting the material" is? You can't say "the fans", because 99.9% of the time they'll have wildly disparate opinions.

Who, then?

TWL

Who gets to decide what "respecting the material" is? You can't say "the fans", because 99.9% of the time they'll have wildly disparate opinions.

I think fans often overestimate their stature in the scheme of things, and overestimate their own insight into the thing that they love [insert the Flower Drum Song Story and Eric Flint stories].

I think one example of this is one fan who's insisting comic fans and their numbers are absolutely key in determining opening weekend box office for a comic book movie. Hrm. Run the numbers. They don't add up to even half a day's worth of receipts....

Welp, let me answer a question with a question, how would you feel Cowboy Pete if the WB said it was making "Fallen Angel" into a teen sex comedy with Brittany Spears as the lead? :D That's how I feel about Jack Black as GL...

"Fallen Angel" into a teen sex comedy with Brittany Spears as the lead? :D That's how I feel about Jack Black as GL...
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHHAHAHHA!!!!!!!!!!!
Thats very funny ,i would never thave thought of that analogy but it is very appropriate .By the way i would not mind seeing that if it went straight to video so i can fast forward to the good parts,and it starred Lindsay Lohan instead
:D

"Fallen Angel" into a teen sex comedy with Brittany Spears as the lead? :D That's how I feel about Jack Black as GL...
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHHAHAHHA!!!!!!!!!!!
Thats very funny ,i would never thave thought of that analogy but it is very appropriate ."

Well, it is if "appropriate" is defined as "completely missing the point."

The Fallen Angel is a very specific individual (and I wouldn't rule out the notion of Britney Spears playing her, by the way, if she did a decent screen test.) The point of my original post was that the concept of Green Lantern is so elastic that it's accommodated everything from squirrels to broccoli, and so it was absurd to rule out the notion of Jack Black as a Green Lantern.

The attempted rebuttal to this was that the Green Lantern of the film was to be Hal Jordan and Jack Black wouldn't be convincing as a fearless test pilot. My response to that is that, since Black himself stated that there wasn't so much as a word written of a script yet, anyone claiming that they know for certain that the movie version was definitely Hal Jordan does not, in fact, know that at all. Without a script, without a director, nothing is set.

PAD

See, I was actually kind of excited about it. I had this full length picture of Black swooping down out of the sky in a Gil Kane uniform, bopping people with giant boxing gloves as Led Zepplin's "The Immigrant Song" was playing (I've seen School of Rock WAY too many times).

Oh, I understood the point, Green Lantern could be anyone, etc., etc. It's just that Hollywood does not understand the concept of THE HERO, yet again. It's corny, old-fashioned and too black and white (no pun intended)in POV. So, again and again, we have people that don't know and love the concept trying to sell it to people that do in a way they don't want. So, that's why people are upset, while the WB and DC might have the property rights to these characters, they belong to us, the li'l people that plunk down their $2.50 a month and keep the faith...

Well, it is if "appropriate" is defined as "completely missing the point."

I honestly thought the missing of the point was more on the part of the studios making some of the comics related projects.No they should not bend to every rabid fanboy whim,but there should be investment in the material to find out why it works and what makes it a good project.
I felt Britney casting was a valid point in that a studio would cast someone where the screen test was good or not because that was who they wanted in the part to "sell" the movie.
Yes i understand thare was no script for GL but its just the idea that it seems like the fans dont count ,if we make it they will come,no matter who we cast or how the character is presented.
While the Green Lantern corp is pretty open ended on admissions i ASSUMED that they were going to feature one the mainstays of the legend of the Green Lantern.(Hal Jordan)
Yes ,I am well aware what happens when we ASSUME.....:)

PAD;

Good point. This is a little like the Whoopie thing where people were complaining before the thing came out. And it is knee-jerk. The only thing I can say is that its only because of the love for the comic.
It not alway rational, but I've never seen love ever completely rational (if at all.)

TWL

Yes, there are some things that will be debated, and some things that will be agreed upon. That is true of everything. As as a tribe, comic book collectors, there are things we know feel right (X-Men, Spider-Man) and things that just feel wrong (Catwoman.) We might disagree about the degree, but we all know what we all mean when we state these things.

Making Green Lantern a comedy is a disrespect with his fans and with a superhero that exists since 1940 and has never had a decent film that lives up to his rich story. I believe if they make Green Lantern a comedy nobody will look at this superhero seriously anymore and the chance of making an eye candy science fiction movie with lots of special effects and lots of action will be lost forever.

I despise Jack Black -- he is NOT funny in any way shape or form.

I rather watch paint dry than see another God awful Jack Black movie. How can anyone find this fat, ugly, no talent creep funny?

He just plain old sucks, period. Much like hack Adam Sandler. Good riddance to douche bag Black.

How he keeps getting work is beyond me. I did kinda like Shallow Hal. But Jack Black is just not someone I enjoy comedywise.

I have heard that an ametour actor from MD named Matthew Foos will be playing the prince of green as kyle rayner. he looks alot like him too. his sister use to be a supermodel.