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Green Lantern May Not Appear in DC Cinematic Universe Until Justice League 2 or Later

by Desh on March 4, 2016

I have bad news for fans who were hoping to see John Stewart as soon as possible on the big screen. Apparently, Green Lantern won’t be appearing in the DC Cinematic Universe until perhaps the second Justice League movie. Greg Silverman, Warner Bros. president of creative development and worldwide production, and producer Charles Roven addressed the character that has been the subject of much speculation and debate among comic book fans. Here is an excerpt from an Entertainment Weekly article:

“[Green Lantern] is an incredible character. He’s actually multiple incredible characters,” Silverman says. “There’s real opportunity there. We didn’t do a great job on that first Green Lantern movie. This is a character who deserves to be treated in the same way that Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman are being treated now, which is with great reverence. I guess I can say to the Green Lantern fans: if they can be patient with us, I think they’ll be really happy.”

But how patient? Rovens says we may not see Hal Jordan, John Stewart, or any incarnation of Green Lantern until Justice League – Part Two. Maybe. “Every beat of the movie is not yet worked out. So there’s the possibility that he may or may not be in Justice League 2,” the producer says. “For now, we felt that we were introducing enough characters that the best possible place we could put Green Lantern is some introduction in Justice League 2, or barring that, a movie after.”

How Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice maps out DC’s movie universe

It seems the reason Green Lantern hasn’t been mentioned much by Warner Bros. is simply because it’s not a priority right now. No doubt this is due to the terrible financial and critical performance of the 2011 Green Lantern film starring Ryan Reynolds, which is generally thought of as one of the worst superhero movies ever. After that weak effort, which Silverman acknowledges Warner Bros. did a bad job on, it seems WB is approaching that property with trepidation.

This is certainly disappointing for those hoping to see John Stewart before the announced Green Lantern Corps movie, which is scheduled for release quite a ways from now in 2020. However, it’s nice to see WB officials offer some clarity on the issue instead of leaving fans wondering for months, if not years.

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Categories: News

  • Corey A Lee

    DC’s Cinematic universe is not that well thought out, IMO. You can tell that they changed all of their plans once MOS did not meet the expectations and they had to shoehorn Batman in the sequel. This just makes me wish that the JL: Mortal movie happened, at least we would havehad Common as GL.

  • Steve Rogers

    I literally hate Hal Jordan. His failure hurts John Stewart’s chances and it shouldn’t even be that way. I feel DC is saying if not Hal, we’re definitely not going to give John Stewart the chances that he deserves, because Hal Jordan is our character that we like more and don’t want John to be recognized as the GL among general audience.

    • Desh Derringer

      It’s really difficult to tell what WB’s feelings are regarding John Stewart, because they never directly address him. We do know that they have little faith in Green Lantern because of Hal Jordan’s movie. Therefore, there’s the hope that when they approach the property again, they will focus on John Stewart. But again, who knows? We do know however that there “are plans” for John Stewart, so that’s better than nothing.

      But yeah, I’m not terribly fond of Hal Jordan, either. One way or another the character continually seems to get in John Stewart’s way and ruin his prospects. It’s hard to like a character like that when you’re a big John Stewart fan.

  • Blakk Jakk

    This bit of news seems to be confirming what I’ve been thinking about the DCEU for awhile now. It’s clear that WB doesn’t know what they’re doing and are trying their damnedest to catch up with Marvel-Disney. That wouldn’t be so bad if they had a vision of where the DCEU is going to be headed or what role these characters are going to play throughout the multi-movie spanning narrative. We have no real idea what long-term goals WB has for the DCEU, just a bunch of short-sighted decisions they’ve made that will likely hurt them when they get past the JL movie. Saddest face is the closest thing they had to DCEU was the DCAU and Marvel-Disney seems informed by it while WB on the other hand only seems interested in the surface-trappings of it.

    With regards to John Stewart, the people at WB clearly see the GL franchise as a plague but feel compelled to stick a GL on the JL which is cynical to me. The fact DC and WB appear to be going at each other about which GL to use is bizarre to me. The controversy behind the 2011 GL movie should inform their opinion about what to do and what not to do with GL. Marvel-Disney knew that Hank Pym was controversial, they knew that Carol Danvers was popular and they know full well that adjusting some things from the canon are acceptable. DC and its fanbase seem to think any tweeking done is akin to blaspheming everything in the DCU when it really isn’t. There’s a certain point where something stops resembling the thing you’re depicting and I’m at least certain that John Stewart being on the team doesn’t change the JLA to something like the Planeteers.

    I do wish we could have Wally, Martian Manhunter and Shayera on the team too but that might be asking a bit much especially for Wally or Shayera who DC seems to really hate right now. That’s why a cynical part of me wants the DCEU to bomb so WB and more importantly DC learn a lesson about depicting things for a general audience and catering to them instead of pretending that they know best and the general audience is too stupid to accept what’s been part of canon for so many years. I’ll be frank, some things that have been part of DC’s history (and for that matter, Marvel as well) aren’t very good and a lot of things going back from the Golden Age to the Bronze Age are at best, outdated and at worst, primitive.

    • Desh Derringer

      I agree with you, Blakk Jakk. A part of me won’t be disappointed if the DCEU fails, because I think DC and WB make a lot of dumb decisions, especially when what they SHOULD do is plain as day right in front of them. It’s not like there isn’t a precedent for success for the Justice League and Green Lantern with mass audiences, but I keep getting the impression that DC and WB want to ignore that as much as they can. If that is really the case, I’m not exactly sure why. It’s bewildering. If audiences responded well to John Stewart and Shayera Hol… well… how come they’re hardly ever in anything of note anymore? Especially when you consider Hal Jordan’s stuff hasn’t gotten over well. What to do with Green Lantern should be a total no-brainer. I chalk much of this up to the bias of certain high ups in DC Comics.

      • Blakk Jakk

        The whole thing has made me into a bit of a grump about the DCEU and this just reeks of cluelessness to me. It shouldn’t be that hard to know that people love the Green Lantern mythos but have made up their minds who the definitive face of the GL franchise should be. Coming from a huge Kyle fan like myself, I don’t consider it insulting as many other fans seem to since that’s how it should be. He showed up in the JL cartoon, made a name for himself, appealed to audiences across the globe (yes, you have to remember people around the world watched JL/JLU, not just the States but even if we’re restricting it to the States, it still got millions of viewers domestically) and practically solidified his presence in pop culture as not just a Green Lantern but *the* Green Lantern. That doesn’t go just away the instant it stops airing and if the big wigs over at DC used their heads, they’d get that.

        I think Marvel/Disney is aware of the success of the DCAU and are informed by it but DC/WB seem to be running away from it. The DCAU model resembles what Marvel/Disney have been doing with their film franchise and have been churning out definitive portrayals that made these characters so iconic. If DC/WB did something like that for their movie universe instead of just cobbling things together and reacting to every decision Marvel/Disney is doing, they’d make an excellent movie universe full of adaptations I’d love to see like the Green Lantern Corps, the Flash and the Speedsters, Thanagar, Blue Beetle & Booster Gold, The New Gods, The Outsiders and even Plastic Man and the Freedom Fighters. I’m still holding out hope that things will get better for the DCEU but as far as I can tell, my cynicism continues to be justified with every idiotic decision this creative team makes.

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