GREEN Jack, Black LANTERN

By: Patrick Sauriol
Date: Friday, July 16, 2004
Source: Ain't It Cool News

Well, this story certainly supports the theory of casting against type.

Ain't It Cool News reports that funnyman Jack Black (SCHOOL OF ROCK) has been signed to play GREEN LANTERN in a Warner Bros. movie of the same name. "Jack Black has closed his deal. He will be playing Green Lantern in a film that has been described as a 'zany comedy version a la THE MASK,'" reports Moriarty, a.k.a Drew McWeeny, the site's west coast reporter. "All rights to the DC comic have been worked out as well, so you can expect to start hearing more about this project in the months ahead."

Jack Black? GREEN LANTERN? Has Warner Bros. fallen into the Bizarro universe??

Not really. Back in the early 1980s, before Tim Burton sold Warners on a dark and gritty BATMAN, one of the ideas kicked around was to make a new BATMAN movie as a flat-out comedy. At one point Eddie Murphy, then riding sky high from his success with BEVERLY HILLS COP, was a contender for the film. In some alternate Earth that movie got made but here in this dimension the BATMAN film we got in 1989 starred Michael Keaton as the Dark Knight. Some of you may even remember the controversy that erupted amongst fans at the time Keaton was announced for the part. However, the key difference between 1989's BATMAN and 2004's GREEN LANTERN is that the first film wasn't tweaked to become a comedy. In the DC Comics universe, the Green Lantern is played strictly as a serious hero.


Stranger things have happened in Hollywood...


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