Warner Bros. came to Comic Con playing a little defense this year. Last week, the debut of Ryan Reynolds in the GREEN LANTERN costume elicited a decidedly mixed reaction from fans. Though it was hardly a travesty of the outfit (which has been tweaked several times over the years), some felt that it looked a bit too cartoony. Rubbery, ugly… just not what was expected. And so, in the grand fanboy tradition, this mild disappointment was suddenly inflated into a searing indictment of the film‘s eventual quality.
Today’s big Hall H panel seemed the perfect opportunity to put these concerns to rest. The sour taste of this less-than-thrilling still picture of Reynolds in costume could easily be washed out with just a glimpse of Hal Jordan in action as the Green Lantern.
This was something that Warner Bros. and director Martin Campbell were not prepared to do. Don't panic, folks.
The emphasis of the ninety-second tease that kicked off the studio’s highly anticipated Saturday panel seemed to be tone. If WB couldn’t show Ryan Reynolds battling evildoers in the costume, they were going to win over the Hall H audience by playing to their affection for the world of the character. I think they got away with it. Though it’s impossible to make any kind of judgment call based on less than two minutes of unfinished footage (from a film that’s still in production), I didn’t see anything in the flurry of disconnected shots that pissed me off as a Green Lantern fan: the earthbound stuff looked fine, Reynolds cuts a convincingly heroic figure as test pilot Hal Jordan, the half-second shot of Oa made me happy; Tomar-Re’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance made me smile*; and, most importantly, we did get to see Jordan summoning a big green fist to clobber a trio of thugs.
Was it mind-blowingly awesome? Nope. But what do you expect from a movie that won’t hit theaters until next June? I suppose they could’ve shown us animatics (like Marvel did with the War Machine sequence from IRON MAN 2 last year), but, again, if they’re not happy with the look of the costume, why run the risk of generating more bad buzz?
Following the footage, Reynolds, Campbell, Blake Lively (Carol Ferris), Mark Strong (Sinestro), Peter Saarsgard (Hector Hammond), producer Donald De Line, Geoff Johns and writer/producer Greg Berlanti took to the stage for an entertaining Q&A that went a long way toward quelling any lingering disappointment over the paucity of actual Green Lantern action. Campbell addressed the Ngila Dickson-designed suit issue early, stating that the CG rendering of it is “always a work in progress.” He said the idea is that it’s actually more of a skin than a costume, and was very confident that the final version of it will look “really cool”.
Some are going to start worrying that GREEN LANTERN is a disaster in the making based on this oddly unenthusiastic showing, but the film is just at an awkward stage of production. What really hurt GREEN LANTERN this weekend was an uncertain marketing push and one so-so image. The filmmakers had nothing to do with that. Give them time to finish their movie.
(One aside: Ryan Reynolds had one of the classiest and coolest moments in the history of the Con when he recited the Green Lantern oath for a young fan. When he finished, he lifted up his hand to reveal that he was wearing the ring. The awestruck look on the kid’s face elicited a chorus of “Awwws!” from the crowd. Reynolds then signed a comic book for the kid. There’s a lot of self-promoting nonsense that goes on during the Q&A periods at these panels, but something like this reminded me what Comic Con is all about. Well done, Mr. Reynolds.)
After GREEN LANTERN, there was a HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS interlude. Tom “Draco Malfoy” Felton was introduced. An extended trailer was screened. It all looked really big and very good. I’d go into detail, but I haven’t read the books, so all I can say is that the two-part finale looks surprisingly bloody.
Finally, Zack Snyder hit the stage to introduce the cast of SUCKER PUNCH, a film that, at the moment, defies description. It’s just your average girl-gets-institutionalized-and-escapes-into-WWI-fantasy-world-with-robots-and-dragons-and-shit type of movie. I spoke with Zack and Debbie Snyder later in the day, and they did a great job of elucidating the crazy business of the narrative. But right now I want to savor the sweet bewilderment of a movie that features a group of cute girls veering from imaginary burlesque shows to trench warfare to god-knows-what-else. This movie looks freaking insane. I mean, did you ever think you’d see lovely little Emily Browning being mentored in the way of the samurai by Scott Glenn? And how great is it to see Alan Shepard swinging the steel again (hopefully, you‘ve seen John Frankenheimer’s THE CHALLENGE)?
I’ve been hearing for a while now that SUCKER PUNCH was going to be a hard R-rated action flick, so I was surprised to hear Snyder say that he thinks a PG-13 is possible. Basically, it comes down to the fact that they’re killing more beasts and zombies than actual people (a distinction which helped Peter Jackson’s LORD OF THE RINGS immensely with the ratings board).
I’ll have more to say about SUCKER PUNCH when I run my interviews with the Snyders, Browning and Jamie Chung.
And here endeth my recap of the Warner Bros. panel. Not an invigorating presentation overall, but, GREEN LANTERN aside, you can’t argue with the high quality of the footage.
*You'll also get to see Kilowog and other favorites from the Corps. Also, in what might've been a slip of the tongue, Reynolds revealed that Parallax will figure into the story.
