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
• 
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
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. Hëll, 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 hëll 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 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?
Luigi Novi: The thing about those other Green Lanterns is that they
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 pëņìš 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 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?
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 hëll out of me.Only movie he was in that I enjoyed was the Jackal where Bruce Willis smokes him with a big ášš 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.Ðámņ 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. Hëll, 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 bášŧárdìzëd 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 bášŧárdìzëd 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. 🙁