Green Lantern headed to the big screen
October 30, 2007

With all the hype surrounding superhero movies these days, studios seem to be in a rush to land the rights to every big Marvel and DC Comics character they can find. Warner Bros. is no exception, as the studio has locked down the rights to a Green Lantern movie, and has tapped Everwood creator Greg Berlanti to co-write and direct the big-screen live-action adaptation of the DC franchise.

Greg Berlanti will coordinate his writing efforts with Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green to produce a script for the Green Lantern film. Variety has reported that Donald De Line will be the producer of the DC Comics live-action adaptation with Andrew Hass claiming the executive producer role. The Green Lantern movie will offer Greg Berlanti a chance to jump to the big screen with a big budget, as the Everwood creator has only directed one feature film in the past, the 2000 movie "The Broken Hearts Club".

Reuters quoted Berlanti, who grew up reading the Green Lantern comic books in the 1980s, as he noted, "To me, this was on the last great comic book movie that hasn't been made." Berlanti explained that, "It was a comic book with a real mythology that you would see in a lot of the space operas and the sci-fi books. The best part about it, anybody can be become one of the Green Lanterns because anyone can end up with that ring."

The Green Lantern first appeared in comics back in 1940, when an alien ship crash-landed on Earth. The spaceship's inhabitant, a dying alien, passed along a powerful ring to Hal Jordan before his death. After slipping the ring on his finger, Hal Jordan, a second-generation test pilot, took on the powers of the Green Lantern. Since that time, the ring has been passed on to several other alter egos, but Hal Jordan remains one of the more popular Green Lanterns.