Green Lantern is the biggest hero that has yet to make an impression on the DC Extended Universe, and we still have many more questions than answers about the Emerald Ring Slinger's next film iteration. Green Lantern drew the short straw in DC's current shared universe largely because of the last, failed stab at bringing the character to the big screen - the 2011 Ryan Reynolds starring film.
That film struck out with both audiences and critics, lacking much of the basic building blocks of what has made the character so enduring. Warner Bros. long ago announced the character would get a DCEU reboot with Green Lantern Corps, which has been slated for a 2020 release. Yet Green Lantern Corps has cycled through several creative false starts, only recently finding its guiding hand in writer/producer Geoff Johns.
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To say Geoff Johns has some experience with Green Lantern would be a massive understatement; after the comic languished in the late 90's and early 00's, Johns brought it roaring back with Green Lantern: Rebirth and its follow-up ongoing series, arguably bringing the character its greatest accolades and popularity ever. In interviews at San Diego Comic-Con this year, Johns was guarded about what the movie will be about or which characters it will feature, but promised something of a reinvention, as well as strong thematic ties to his run on the comic. So what does that mean for Green Lantern's future in the DCEU? To figure that out, we need to look to the character's recent past.
- This Page: Green Lantern's Rebirth
- Page 2: How The DCEU's Green Lantern Will Be "Reinvented"
Green Lantern: Rebirth
Amid the grim and gritty trends of the 90's comics world, DC Comics decided that Green Lantern had become stale. Radical, controversial changes were made to the book, as an insane Hal Jordan destroyed the Green Lantern Corps and became the villain Parallax. Ganthet, the last of the Guardians of the Universe, abruptly gave the last surviving power ring to a young man named Kyle Rayner with no explanation. That iteration of the character, largely written by Ron Marz, saw early success as it chronicled Kyle's journey from directionless young artist to a bonafide hero, nobly upholding a legacy he had no real attachment to. But by the time Marz left the book in the late 90's, Green Lantern's popularity had waned considerably, and by 2004 the character was essentially an also-ran.
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Enter Geoff Johns. The all-star writer reinvigorated the franchise with Green Lantern: Rebirth, which saw the return of the book's most iconic aspects, like the Green Lantern Corps, Sinestro, and, most importantly, a redeemed, heroic Hal Jordan. Kyle Rayner, John Stewart, and Guy Gardner were all welcomed into the Green Lantern Corps, but the proceeding ongoing series focused on Hal Jordan. And yet this wasn't some cheap nostalgia trick, as Johns massively expanded the character's world, introducing the emotional spectrum, which saw every color of the rainbow get its own equivalent to the GLC. Sinestro Corps War was among DC's biggest and most well-received event books of the 21st century, and Green Lantern was suddenly DC's second most reliable seller, trailing only Batman.
The argument can be made that the success of Johns' book played a significant role in getting the 2011 Green Lantern film made, and Johns even had a co-producer credit on that film, though he wasn't one of its primary creative forces. That film's failure - along with Johns' departure from the comic book - saw Green Lantern's popularity collapse on multiple fronts, and seemingly rendered the character radioactive to the burgeoning DCEU. Five movies into the shared universe, there have been some hints about the character, but he's still a complete no-show. Amid the reshuffling of DC Films' leadership structure, a draft of the Green Lantern Corps script by David Goyer and Justin Rhodes was apparently scrapped in favor of Johns writing a new script from scratch.
Page 2 of 2: How The DCEU's Green Lantern Will Be "Reinvented"
How The DCEU's Green Lantern Will Be "Reinvented"
Many have interpreted Johns' comments about the upcoming Green Lantern film being a "reinvention" of the character as a significant overhaul of the central premise and tenets we associate with the character, but a close look at Johns' other comments about integrating aspects of his comic book run show that's not necessarily the case. He's actually embracing a number of things he's already done in the comics, meaning his "reimagine" and "reinvent" statements are targeted more towards the live-action version of the character, trying to differentiate this project from the 2011 Ryan Reynolds movie.
That film whiffed on many of the things that make Green Lantern such an appealing concept. Ryan Reynolds' Hal Jordan was a smarmy, whiny jerk who didn't really seem worthy of being a universal protector. And for a character who can do almost anything and go virtually anywhere in the universe, an inordinate amount of the film took place on Earth with Hal blasting away at undercooked villains who feel ported in from any other run of the mill comic book film. It was clearly an attempt to take advantage of the style and aesthetic of the MCU's wildly successful phase 1 films, and it failed miserably.
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The current plan for future DCEU projects favors self-contained worlds over shared universe team-ups, which is an obvious opportunity for DC to explore science fiction and cosmic space stories through Green Lantern. It's long been understood that Green Lantern Corps would feature both Hal Jordan and John Stewart, with a veteran Hal introducing a rookie John into the universal police force - though it's not out of the realm of possibility Johns will jettison that concept. Johns' suggestion that many aspects of his comic run will be integrated into the film suggests two things in particular; the first is that the emotional spectrum will play a central role, which will massively expand the dimensions of this particular corner of the DCEU, to the point that dozens of potential stories could be told before a Green Lantern ever needed to meet Superman or Batman. It could also offer up some legitimate villains with the likes of Atrocitus, the leader of the rage-fueled Red Lantern Corps, who was made into a monster by the GLs masters, the Guardians of the Universe, and Larfleeze, the one and only member of the Orange Lantern Corps, which derives its power from the orange light of greed.
The second thing this suggests is that the film will dive much deeper into the relationship that ultimately defined Johns' run: the murky sometimes friendship/sometimes rivalry between Hal Jordan and Sinestro. Whereas the Hal of the 2011 film was a largely unlikeable loser, Johns' Hal struck a much more charming balance, equal parts Chuck Yeager, James T. Kirk, and Top Gun's Maverick (making those Tom Cruise rumors all the more intriguing). After Hal suffered for decades as either Green Arrow's centrist punching bag, a middle-aged mope, or a psychotic villain, it felt like Johns had finally found the core of the character. And rather than the two-dimensional mustache twirler of the Silver Age, Sinestro was reframed as a deeply flawed, but perhaps not quite irredeemable man. He taught Hal everything he knew about being a Green Lantern and was incredibly wary of the amoral Guardians of the Universe, but he also essentially enslaved his own planet in pursuit of order, and waged war on institutions and civilizations that didn't deserve it.
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An epic space opera between Hal and Sinestro, with a rookie John Stewart as something of an audience surrogate, would be a tremendous departure from the 2011 film, while staying true to the things that people love about the world of Green Lantern. It would also present a flavor that isn't currently being offered in the DCEU, which would be in keeping with the new, more diverse storytelling strategy for the shared universe. The DCEU needs to offer moviegoers something distinctly different from Marvel, and Green Lantern presents more than a solid opportunity to shed some of the well-worn superhero film tropes that have saturated the genre over the last decade.
Green Lantern likely has the most difficult task of any DC movie currently in the pipeline. Casual audiences still associate the character with the failed 2011 Ryan Reynolds film, and the Deadpool 2 after credits scene is only going to reinforce that association. Warner Bros. has seemed genuinely unsure of how to utilize the character going forward. But if anyone can figure out a way to pull Green Lantern out of its lowest depths, it's Geoff Johns. His seven-year run on the comic is still the crowning achievement of his career, and no one has shaped the character's world to the degree he has. It's been a long, miserable wait for Green Lantern fans, but the blue light of hope just might be on the horizon.
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