A lot of fans are sighing with great relief that, for the moment, it seems the reports of Jack Black as “Green Lantern” were premature.
But ohhh, the hullabaloo the original announcement caused. The cries of outrage. The shrieks that this was a ridiculous idea, that a comedic take on Green Lantern was an insult–insult, I say!–was a terrible concept, rotten to the Corps.
I would like to respond to that with one word: G’Nort.
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 hëll?!? 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? 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 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. Could be a darned good character arc…certainly more promising from a movie point of view than the adventures of a guy who has absolutely no sense of fear acquiring a ring and going off to unhesitatingly do good with it.
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.
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?
PAD
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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-ášš 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? 😀 That’s how I feel about Jack Black as GL…
“Fallen Angel” into a teen sex comedy with Brittany Spears as the lead? 😀 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
😀
“Fallen Angel” into a teen sex comedy with Brittany Spears as the lead? 😀 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.