And Details Of Footage Shown At The ‘Green Lantern’ Wonder Con Presentation
During a panel featuring stars Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively at WonderCon in San Francisco today Warner Bros. revealed new footage from this summer’s “Green Lantern”. The panel was led by current DC Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns who announced that a new full-length “Green Lantern” trailer will be released May 6th, attached to “Thor,” before introducing a good deal of new footage to those in attendance.
While the first trailer for “Green Lantern” felt like it was still in search of a tone, the clips shown today revealed fleshed-out scenes that may reach in various directions, but don’t feel disparate. During the panel we were offered a look at a handful of scenes that track Green Lantern’s origin story from deep space to earth and back again.
The first scene in the collection involves Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison) fleeing from a dark force mysteriously summoned after a warning from Sinestro (Mark Strong). The action throughout the scene is fairly captivating and really hints at the potential for inventive use of the Green Lantern’s power in the film. The chase ends with Abin Sur receiving a fatal wound but still making it to an escape pod and hurtling towards Earth. Post crash-landing, Hal Jordan attempts to rescue Abin Sur while acting casual about the alien’s purple pigment. Abin Sur briefly explains that Hal is to take his ring and recite an oath but croaks before he can get into the details.
We jump ahead to find Hal taking his task to heart, if reluctantly. Not knowing “the oath” he’s been asked to take he starts freestyling until suddenly a force possesses him, causing his eyes to glow green. He recites the oath that will commit him to his journey and literally explodes into the sky and through space until he reaches Oa, the planet base of the Guardians of the Universe, of which Hal Jordan has just become a member.
On Oa, Hal meets one of his new teachers, Tomar-Re (Geoffrey Rush — a very new addition as we reported recently) — and Sinestro, who makes his distrust of Hal apparent before all of the gathered Green Lantern corps. Sinestro goes on to work the crowd before him into a roar as they raise their rings to the sky and create a green beam visible from space. From there we leave full chunks of scenes and get a hurried montage of shots from all over the film.
After the clips wrapped up, Johns invited Reynolds and Lively to the stage. The three chatted briefly about training for a super hero film, shooting on a bluescreen stage, and Lively going brunette (which the fan base present particularly appreciated).
Between “Green Lantern”, “Deadpool”, and the upcoming “R.I.P.D.” Reynolds admitted that his potential for adding any new comic book characters to his resume is probably over, saying, “I think I’ve reached my quota.” When asked an allegiance-testing question putting “Green Lantern” side by side with “Deadpool,” Reynolds quickly choose the former but was careful to identify “Deadpool” as a lingering possibility. “I love this more because it captures your imagination more than anything else could. I don’t want to get into the Deadpool thing; there’s too many unknowns there. But if we do make it, it’ll be the right way: full on.”
For Lively, deciding to take on a superhero franchise wasn’t a snap decision. With already a long-term commitment to the CW television series “Gossip Girl” she had to consider what it would mean to double up with another one. “I had a little bit of resistance at first, thinking, you know, here’s a superhero movie. Is that something I want to do because I’m already so committed to something for so much of my life. I met with Martin [Campbell], I met with Donald [De Line], I read with Ryan and talked to Warner Bros. about this and it was just undeniable; there was no choice. Before I met with all these people I thought, maybe only do one and the other ones won’t work out. But the moment I got to know everybody and started working on this set I thought ‘Oh my gosh I hope so much we do a second and third.”
In the Green Lantern world, Lively’s character Carol Ferris eventually becomes Star Sapphire, something of an anti-Green Lantern with powers emanating from a sapphire ring. Lively expressed her interest in her character going through the transformation stating, “I’d love to fly!”
As referenced above, the voice cast for the fully computer-generated characters is getting rounded out late in the game. Geoffrey Rush was recently cast as the voice of Tomar-Re who becomes Hal Jordan’s mentor in the powers of the ring. During the panel today a scene featuring interaction between Hal Jordan and Tomar-Re was shown off, though when asked about his interaction with Rush, Reynolds admitted, “I haven’t met Geoffrey, not as of yet.”
“Green Lantern” will be in theaters June 17th. — story by Sean Gillane
