After years of what's-taking-so-long buildup, a killer Comic-Con rollout and a pre-trailer teaser that popped up earlier this week, the first "Green Lantern" trailer is set to debut online in a few hours.
That sound you hear is the MTV Movies team giggling with delight. Because it's been a long time coming, and there's still almost seven months to go until the DC Comics adaptation hits theaters. As we look forward to the new trailer, we've also been looking back at everything we already know about "Green Lantern."
Early Development
The flick has journeyed through a by-now-familiar cycle of development delays and contrasting studio visions. An earlier version, for instance, established a more comedic take on the character — Hal Jordan, a fighter pilot-turned-superhero, thanks to an all-powerful ring — with Jack Black in the starring role. By the summer of 2008, though, Warner Bros. had shifted the property back to active development, and a trio of fanboy-approved writers (Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green) penned a new script.
"We really spanned the whole gamut from the Silver Age through the Modern Age to Geoff Johns," Guggenheim told us about "Lantern" comics that inspired them. "There's a lot of different elements that are hard to coalesce, actually. Green Lantern as much as any modern-day superhero has a lot of continuity gaps and inconsistencies, and you're wrestling with it all to make everything work."
In February 2009, word broke that "Casino Royale" director Martin Campbell was in negotiations to direct, and by that summer, three actors were reportedly competing for the Jordan role: Bradley Cooper, Justin Timberlake and Ryan Reynolds. In July, the part was handed to Reynolds.
"I fell in love with the character when I met with Martin Campbell," Reynolds told us that November. "When you have a guy like Martin Campbell, part of his charm is that he has balls of titanium, and the other part is that he's slightly crazy, and you have to be to take on something with the scope of 'Green Lantern.' He's less of the director and more of a general."
The Shoot
Just days into 2010, "Green Lantern" got an official green light and a production start date of March. Quickly, the rest of the cast came together: Blake Lively as Jordan love interest Carol Ferris; Mark Strong as initial Jordan mentor Sinestro; Peter Sarsgaard as villain Dr. Hector Hammond; and Tim Robbins as Senator Hammond.
In a move that surprised no one, Campbell announced that the film would be converted to 3-D during post-production. Ramping up the visual-effects quotient further, it became clear that Reynolds' suit would be a completely CG-assisted outfit, and that's exactly what we got when images of a suited-up Reynolds debuted online.
San Diego Comic-Con
Warner Bros. swept into the den of pop-culture geekery this summer with one heck of a presentation: purple-hued Abin Sur encased in glass; footage of Reynolds as Jordan and Sarsgaard as Hammond; and tons of commentary from the cast and crew.
"The tone is light. It has a lot of humor, but I think the relationships between all the characters are very real," Campbell said during the Comic-Con panel. "We try to keep the action very real. ... It's my first superhero movie — unless you count James Bond."
The Run-Up to the Trailer
The key question remained: When would folks not lucky enough to be in Hall H during Comic-Con get to check out "Green Lantern" footage? DC Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns announced that the trailer would debut in front of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1" on Friday. But what about online?
"I wish I could say tomorrow, but it's not going to be tomorrow. It will be soon, though." Johns said in October. "Technically it's a teaser, but it's pretty big. I don't know the exact time, length, but it's got more stuff in there than I would have thought for a teaser, that's for sure."
MTV News then learned the trailer would appear online Tuesday (November 16) at 8 p.m. ET. A few days earlier, "Entertainment Tonight" aired a teaser for the trailer. We saw Reynolds transform into superhero form and unleash a giant, power-ring-enabled fist; images of the Green Lantern home planet; and Kilowog, one nasty-looking drill instructor who helps train Jordan.
So what will we see in the full trailer? Whatever it is, expect some heated debate. That's what happened when the first look at Jordan's costume debuted and, well, Reynolds expects nothing less.
"There has to be a little healthy debate about it," he told us. "I mean, that's important. If it were just slanted one way or the other, I don't think it would be that satisfying."
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