Any day now, Warner Bros. seems likely to finally announce its “Justice League of America” cast, officially appointing some lucky actor as the first cinematic Green Lantern. But as die-hard film fans know, funnyman Jack Black came this close to breaking in the green and black tights just a few years ago.
“Oh yeah,” he remembered recently, before making an all-in-fun reference to the WB keyholders currently auditioning actors like Common and T.I. for the superhero role. “The bastards!”
Now, Black is talking back about the “Green Lantern” movie, revealing details of the movie we’ll never see. “I really liked the script that a friend of mine wrote,” he remembered of the comedic take on the character. “But nobody wanted to make it; it was too weird.”
The reason why actors like Jack Black and Common (and Eddie Murphy, who was briefly involved with a “Green Lantern” script in his Eighties heyday) can all be Green Lanterns is because the name is actually a catch-all for several fictional characters. Over the last 67 years, such beloved comic creations as Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner and John Stewart (who is African-American) have joined the Green Lantern Corps - an interplanetary police force consisting of more than 7000 members of all species, each fueled by a power ring that gives unlimited crime-fighting tools to the wearer.
In 2004, rumors began surfacing that Black (hot off films like “School of Rock”) was in talks to play a common man who found himself as the newest member of the Corps. Influenced heavily by the Jim Carrey hit “The Mask,” the script was to depict an overweight hero using the power ring in comedic ways.
“I was going to be making all kinds of stuff,” Black said of the ring, which gives its possessor the power to create anything that can be imagined, and in the comic books usually manifests itself as green cages, weapons, walls, boxing gloves, etc.
“I was going to be capturing bad guys with green, giant prophylactics,” Black remembered of one scene in the script. “Some funny stuff.”
If that doesn’t sound like a good idea, you might want to take a moment to thank the most unlikely of saviors: Halle Berry’s “Catwoman.” That disloyal-to-the-comic movie’s disappointing box office, coupled with an intensely negative Internet reaction to the comedian’s casting, quickly killed Jack Black’s “Green Lantern.”
“It would have been a comedy, and I don’t know, maybe they didn’t want to go that way with the character,” the “Margot at the Wedding” star sighed. “You don’t see a lot of the superheroes as comedies. Batman, Superman, Spiderman - they’re all pretty straight-up.”
Are you happy that GL will now be the John Stewart character in “Justice League,” or would you have preferred seeing Jack Black give it a shot? In brightest day, in darkest night, no discussion shall escape the comments board below!
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:28 am
Thank me.
Green Lantern is closer to Star Wars than Spaceballs. Jack Black wielding solid construct lanterns would have been a disgrace.
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:00 am
I like Mr. Black he is a hell of a funny dude,but as Green Lantern well he should just play Gnort if he wants to be a comic Green Lantern anything else is just ..well…HELL NO ! with all respect to Mr.Black.
November 22nd, 2007 at 5:23 am
Jack Black seems like a decent guy and talented musician, but I can only take about 5 minutes of him. Thank goodness this dork wasn’t allowed to dump all over the GL legacy.
November 22nd, 2007 at 10:56 am
The Green Lantern is a monumental character. I like Jack Black and I appreciate his interest in the character of Green Lantern. Too many people have been waiting for too long for this movie to be a shabby farce of a great character that has a great story to tell. I would like to see a great origin story on par with the original Superman movie to made about Hal Jordan. I think that the other eartmen that have becom Green Lanterns could each have a movie that highlights there character. I see Alan Scott as being kind of a older Mentor to Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, and Jon Stewart characters. These would make fine movies that people would want to see. Throw in the Atom, Hawkman, and few other characters like these throughout the movies in creative ways to enrich the plot and then you have a natural way to introduce others that would then potentially have their own series. That is what I think.
November 22nd, 2007 at 5:06 pm
The strength of the “Green Lantern” concept is flexibility: not just anyone, but *A*N*Y*O*N*E* could be offered the ring, as long as the nature of who they are fulfills the requirements (capable of overcoming great fear and phenomenal willpower). By that reckoning, Jack Black could very well have played _one_ GL… just as long as it wasn’t the _first_ GL on the big screen, because the concept’s strength is a weakness after getting run through the Hollywood machine. The first exposure that the non-comic-book audience has to any comic-book character is usually a movie, which in turn will all but irreparably set the tone of sequels, merchandising, etc. (Consider the original structures of “The Mask”, “Men In Black”, and other such franchises, in comparison to the movie versions.) I don’t personally begrudge Jack Black’s idea of what he, personally, would do if he were awarded the ring, but I frankly do think that it would be a disservice to the series if he were the only Green Lantern that the moviegoing public ever saw… because you can bet whatever amount you like, his would be the first and the last. I want Green Lantern to have more than one movie, dangitall, and Jack Black as the lead would kill that notion dead-dead-deadsky.
November 23rd, 2007 at 9:03 am
oh man …
this BLACK guy (:D) doesn’t even know that Comic Book doesn’t mean being comedic.
I really like to see Clive Owen as Hal Jordan
November 23rd, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Thank God…. Black is about as funny as a hammer pounding on baby thumbs.
Do a good GL movie. Just dont let Black or any of his ’scriptwriting friends’ near it….
November 23rd, 2007 at 5:25 pm
My thoughts on Jack Black as Green Lantern… WTF was that idiot thinking? I’ve liked most of his movies, but seriously… Quit trying to F around with our comic books to film. Green Lantern is a serious comic book and should be treated as such when brought to film.
Did that idiot see what Schumacher(Spelling of his name is not important considering how much of a dumb@$$ he is) did to the Batman franchise? He nearly killed it trying to turn Batman into a comedy. Turning Green Lantern into a comedy would likely produce the same results and even if it didn’t it would still be a disgrace to Green Lantern. This was seriously one of the stupidest ideas ever concocted.
If he wants a chance at making a Comedy out of Green Lantern he should wait until a serious film is made and make a parody of it in the same way that Epic Movie parodied Marvel’s Marry mutants and other comic adaptions!
November 23rd, 2007 at 6:34 pm
No,to answer your question,I AM NOT HAPPY ABOUT STEWART BEING THE FIRST GREEN LANTERN ON THE BIG SCREEN. IT SHOULD BE GL HAL JORDAN IN JLA,but won’t be for racial diversity reasons,which I’m all for,just not at the expense of the greatest (in every sense of the word,don’t like it,bite me!)GL of all time. But,I’d rather have Stewart,Guy,Kyle,or just about ANY OTHER EXISTING GL from the comics THAN A JACK-ASS BLACK COMEDY THAT WOULD RUIN THE CHARACTER FOR YEARS,IF NOT FOREVER. I’m SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO glad that this didn’t happen. WTF were they thinking?!!
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Now George Miller can you just cast the upcoming actress Sophia M. Martinez as Wonder Woman b/c she is the only one who can fully protray this character on all levels. http://WWW.NOWCASTING.COM/SOPHIAMARTINEZ
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2124314/
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:24 pm
George M can you just cast the upcoming actress Sophia M. Martinez as Wonder Woman b/c she is the only one who can fully protray this character on all levels. http://WWW.NOWCASTING.COM/SOPHIAMARTINEZ
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2124314/
November 24th, 2007 at 12:24 am
Jack Black is not that funny, especially in film. This would have been a disaster, thank heavens it was denied. Jack White would have been a better Green Lantern in Red, White and Black, no Green.
November 24th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
If he was the comic relief member on a GL Corps team (Like Guy Gardner), then I would accept it. Solo? No way. It would go down with Catwoman, Batman and Robin, and the Abrams Superman script in comic movie hell.
November 27th, 2007 at 1:23 am
Thank God! I can’t stand Jack Black. I am not too crazy about a different version of GL being on the Justice League movie (if not Hal I would have preferred Kyle for the JL movie) but I’m kinda happy that the Hal Jordan character still has a chance of being the first version of GL in a Green Lantern only movie. I’m tired of comic book movies being treated like stand-up comedies. Thankfully between the Spider-Man and Batman Begins movies some comic book movies are treated with respect. Even in the great Spider-Man movies there are god-awful scenes like Peter Parker doing disco dancing and Mary-Jane trying to be a broadway actress (there’s a reason she was a model in the comics!). Unfortunately Kirsten D didn’t have the looks of a model to pull it off so they had to go with a d-level actress.
Jack Black and comedians like him should never be green-lit for comic book movies unless they are playing a comedian type comic book character (like Plastic man or The Mask). Even big-name stars shouldn’t be green-lit for a comic book character movie if they insist on not being true to the comic book (like Halle Berry for Catwoman or the Batman series killer Batman & Robin with it’s all-star cast and nipple suited Batman & Robin). Comedy should really be kept to a minimum in comic book movies unless you have someone like Jim Carrey playing The Mask as a one-time thing.
Green Lantern as a movie would need to be treated seriously and most of us GL fans prefer it to be Hal Jordan. It gotta be true hard-core sci-fi. Alien comes to earth Hal discovers the ship and the ring is passed on to him. From there you can pick a super-villain for him to fight, but the origin story has to stay true to the comics for the most part. Hal has to be a pilot cause his love of flying helps define the character. The cool thing about Hal as a Green Lantern is he loved to fly before the ring and he gets to fly without a plane because of the ring. I’d like Sinestro as the villain but that’s the only GL villain I can think of off-hand. He needs a bump up in the villains gallery. Batman & Superman have great villains and even The Flash has built up a nice rogues gallery in recent years but GL needs more villains that are A-listers. It would even be nice if a villain was borrowed from Superman or Batman kinda like the Kingpin who was a villain to Spiderman, Punisher but mostly Daredevil. It would be cool if Bizarro or one of the Superman clones or Brainiac even was a surprise GL villain. Might be good to keep Sinestro for a sequel. Then again Sinestro might be a multi-movie type villain like Lex Luthor was in the Superman movies. Unfortunately the comic book movies seem intent on “killing” the villains in the end. The cool thing about Green Lantern is you can add more GL’s likee bring on Kyle in the sequel and another one in the third movie. I just hope Green Lantern is treated with the respect that the original Superman movie had to the character. Be true to the story, the character (Hal Jordan) and throw us some curveballs here and there to surprise us but have a dangerous villain and above all else NO COMEDY! NO HACK BLACK!
November 27th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Dear god some of you people are ~%*@. I use to love reading comic books and I have to say Green Lantern is one of the dumbest and most corny superheroes I have ever seen in my life. I mean honestly I would laugh whenever I read some of the horrible writing that was in those books. 85% of DC’s comic book creations were so unbelievably fruity they all almost came off as rejects from the @?@@? Eye for the Striaght Guy Cast. I mean come on Guy Gardener! Do you all remember his haircut? He had a bowl cut with red hair and freckles. The fact that they are making a JLA movie is so stupid it hurts to think about it. Super Man and Batman are icons, they started it all, so stick with them. The rest of the JLA are jokes, especially aquaman. I could literally list all the most retarded comic creations if I wanted to go up in the attic and pull out my DC universe cards and comics. If any character deserves to be made fun of it is the Green Lantern. The character sucks and a comedy would actually make it actually appealing. Be happy a guy as talented as Jack Black even wanted to touch such a lame character. and to the guy bellow me, calling himself God. You are a loser get a life.
November 30th, 2007 at 11:54 am
The “friend” who wrote the script is Robert (”SNL TV Funhouse”) Smigel, who just co-wrote Adam Sandler’s next movie (”The Zohan”) which sounds like it’s going to be hysterical. So we hopefully get the serious GL we wanted, but maybe we’ve lost out on a great comedy.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Guy Gardner was, and is, a great character, and doesn’t have freckles. The haircut was very popular at the time Guy Gardner came into prominence as earths Green Lantern. If you read the comics, you’d appreciate his story as it relates to the whole Green Lantern mythos. And if you want to talk about corny stories, Old Batman and Superman comics are corny as hell too, but I don’t see people clamouring for a movie based off of Lois Lane comics where she tries to convince superman to marry her. Jack Black using the GL ring to make giant condoms in space is just the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of.
December 14th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
that %%~* sounds funny jack black’s the man. you take the green lantern to serious it’s just a comic caracter it would have been funny for him to find the ring or some old guy gives it to him
February 14th, 2008 at 8:47 am
Plsss….we are talking about a lengendary comic hero - The Green Lantern.Black is definitely the last on the list but also the most amazing movie cast of the year 2008..if chosen to be…Ultimately, all GL followers should not be confused by GL Movie and The Justice League…GL Movie should be played by a white guy(Tom Cruise will be too mature) and the latter should instead be a black man’s role….Finally we have found a balance between these 2 movies.
April 9th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I like Jack black.. but please don’t let him or common play green lantern! Common eeds to stay in the lyricist lounge with, incense and stay outta films. Jogn stewart is a n ex G.I roughneck..AWW hell nooo.. .The supposed line up for this JLA disaster looks worse and worse..Are we going back to batman forever?catwoman..and must i say steel.. which was the most Hamboning of a character I have ever seen vomited on screen? I am a black male by the way lol.
June 21st, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I would love to see Jack Black sing crazy ~%%@% by Buck Cherry. In a upcoming movie. That would be f_____ing funny. What Do you think?
June 23rd, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Jack Black ROCKS!
He does it all. Just saw Kung Fu Panda—Fantastic! Take a re-look at Saving Silverman—underrated to say the least…
—iChef Cinema