It’s just been announced that Ryan Reynolds will play Hal Jordan in the live action Green Lantern film directed by Martin Campbell (Casino Royale). That’s great news. Reynolds has not been secretive about his comic book leanings since appearing in the last Blade film and more recently as Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, as well as in the future solo spin-off. Reynolds has the right youthful presence to play Jordan in multiple films as well as the necessary bravado. Nathan Fillion (Firefly) was the other obvious candidate. Green Lantern begins shooting in Sydney in January, and this month sees the release of the great looking GL animated film on DVD and Blu-Ray. The live action film is being written by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green. Berlanti and Guggenheim created the TV series Eli Stone, while Guggenheim has also written comics such as Blade, Flash and Oni’s Resurrection. Green has dabbled in comics too, with a great run on Superman/Batman and Batman Confidential.
There’s a host of writers working on comics, film and TV these days. John Rogers is another example. His work on the new Blue Beetle series from DC and on the Global Frequency TV pilot gives him serious fanboy cred. He too is writing for TV now, specifically the new series Leverage which is being guided by Dean Devlin (Stargate) and Rogers. It’s described thusly:
In the series, a renegade team of modern-day Robin Hoods operates outside the law to take revenge against those who use power and wealth to victimize others. Separately, they’re criminals with reputations for working alone. Together, they’re the perfect team to turn the tables on the corrupt and level the playing field for the little guy.
To give it more nerd gratitude, alongside Timothy Hutton it stars Christian Kane (left) from Angel and Aldis Hodge as a sci-fi fanboy. The series has also included Star Trek actors Armin Shimerman and Brent Spiner. That’s a pretty good pop culture pedigree right there. The second series airs July 15 on the U.S TNT network.
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