lanternlogo Green Lantern Sequel Updates

Don’t know if you heard or not, but the Ryan Reynolds starred Green Lantern didn’t do so well at the box office. Despite this “setback”, WB and DC are still planning another film, but it’s the direction of said film that is the topic of discussion. In talking to THR, Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner Chairman and CEO, discusses Green Lantern’s under-performance the the potential second film:

“It did not live up to expectations – fell fairly far short of those,” Bewkes said. Still, he didn’t rule out a sequel at this point, saying that he was not in a position to tell at this time if there will be one. “We will be deciding that in due course,” he said. Sources had previously told The Hollywood Reporter that Warner Bros. was not giving up on a sequel.

Nothing really earth-shattering there by any means. I’m impressed by the fact that they have at least acknowledged the film was sub-par and that things need to be fixed. The film has been in theaters for two months now and has only brought in $114 million, which doesn’t even com close to it’s $200 million budget. Can we say…flop?

One way to fix that is with a reboot. Yes, a reboot is already being talked about. The LA Times has learned that DC and WB will start things over and take the character in a whole new direction. Jeff Robinov, Warner Bros. film group President said:

“We had a decent opening so we learned there is an audience. To go forward we need to make it a little edgier and darker with more emphasis on action…. And we have to find a way to balance the time the movie spends in space versus on Earth.”

It also appears that Martin Campbell will not be returning to the project as well. There is also a completed script for a sequel that was written by Greg Berlanti, Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim, who all did work on the script for the first film. Should a second film go into production, there is no word on whether this script would be used, revamped or tossed. If I had to take a guess, I’d bet the script is tossed and things start from the ground up.

If they are looking to go an “edgier” route, I might suggest they skip Hal Jordan and go with John Stewart (not the comedian) or Guy Gardner, as either one of those characters would add a more edgy fell to the film. We’ll have to see where this one lands as they attempt to move forward.

On a side note, the Times was also told that WB has a solid script for The Flash project, which is said to be headed to production soon. Robinov is also still interested in bringing the Justice League to theaters in the future.