Last month we heard that Peter Sarsgaard was in talks to joins the cast of Green Lantern as villain Dr. Hector Hammond, the pathologist son of a senator who is seen as a disappointment in his father’s eyes. Well now according to Heat Vision Oscar winning actor Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption) will be playing the disappointed senator.

Green Lantern is due to start filming in March, so we can expect a few more casting announcements over the upcoming weeks. They’ve already found their leads (Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively), so it’s just a matter of gathering the smaller roles now.

Bryan Singer’s X-Men films spawned a new era of ‘realistic’ superhero films. Gone were the campy costumes and over-the-top villains, instead we were treated to superhero outings that could very well be taking place in our own depressing and ordinary world. This trend will likely be here for while with a new ‘gritty’ Spider-Man reboot on the way, and recently Green Lantern director Martin Campbell told Sci-Fi Wire that he will be keeping his film cheese-free.

“I think the thing to do is keep a sense of reality about it. Any time we talk about it, we sit in meetings, we have a cheese meter. We talk about de-cheesing any scene. So it’s quite funny. We’ve all sort of got a sort of cheese meter where that becomes our sort of yardstick in terms of keeping it, giving it some sense of reality.”

“So often in these superhero movies, nobody seems to get hurt. I remember seeing Wolverine, and he picks people up and hurls them 100 yards into a brick wall. These people, apparently unhurt, sort of get up and continue to fight just as strongly as they did before. Well, there’s something absurd about that, in my opinion.”

He has a point. But then again Wolverine and Sabretooth can heal, so even if they were hurt they wouldn’t be down for very long. Anyway, enough with the specifics. Campbell has just said he’ll be giving us a realistic, non-cheesy Green Lantern movie were people are hurt, and stay that way for a considerable length of time. I always knew he was a good choice for director!

What’s this? Mark Strong might be playing a villain in a film? That’s never happened before (if you ignore Sunshine, Stardust, Sherlock Holmes, and upcoming films Kick-Ass, Robin Hood and John Carter of Mars). Well I suppose he is British.

Green Lantern director Martin Campbell today squashed rumours that Watchmen actor Jackie Earle Haley was in talks to play the role of Sinestro by announcing they were currently in talks with Mark Strong:

Speaking with MTV News during the junket for “Edge of Darkness,” his upcoming action thriller opening January 29, Campbell dismissed rumors that “Watchmen” actor Jackie Earle Haley was in talks for the role.

“No, that’s completely wrong,” said Campbell of the persistent rumor, which popped up again recently despite Haley denying any involvement with the “Green Lantern” movie. “In fact, we’re in negotiations with Mark Strong to play Sinestro.”

“He’s not only a wonderful actor, but he looks like Sinestro,” he added. “If you look up old pictures of Sinestro, he’s very like him. The Jackie Earle Haley thing, somebody told me about it this morning; I had never heard it before in my life.”

He also revealed the names of a few other characters that would be making an appearance. I’m not familiar with the Green Lantern world but i’m sure a few people will be familiar with these names.

“Well, Kilowag will be,” said Campebll. “Tomar-Re is in it. Sinestro is in it. Abin Sur is in it. All the origin people. Carol [Ferris], of course, who will be played by Blake Lively. All the main characters are there, and it’s a complex story. The origin story of Green Lantern is complex, probably one of the most complex, which makes it a challenge to get it right.”

Green Lantern will begin filming in around 8 weeks, so they have a bit more time to negotiate and get Mark Strong on-board.

Last week we learned that Gossip Girl actress Blake Lively would be joining the cast of Green Lantern as the female lead, and now according to Heat Vision Peter Sarsgaard (Rendition, An Education) is in talks to play villain Dr. Hector Hammond, the pathologist son of a senator who is seen as a disappointment in his father’s eyes. He becomes infused with psychic powers when he discovers a meteor.

Filming begins in around 9 weeks time with Casino Royale director Martin Campbell at the helm.

With Green Lantern getting the green light earlier this week we expected that casting announcements would soon be popping up, and the first comes from THR who say that actress Blake Lively will play the female lead alongside Ryan Reynolds.

Lively will play Carol Ferris, who runs her father’s aerospace company and hires cocky test pilot Hal Jordan (Reynolds), who later becomes the intergalactic policeman Green Lantern. In the comics, the romance became complicated when an alien race bestowed her the power of a crystal called the Star Sapphire.

The search for the Martin Campbell-directed film’s leading lady was almost as intense as the one for its title star. Keri Russell and Jennifer Garner were reportedly among those in the mix for the role.

The role called for a slightly older actress but Lively, who stars in the CW’s “Gossip Girl,” impressed the studio and filmmakers with her audition. Warners was also impressed with her work in “The Town,” its adaptation of the gritty Chuck Hogan novel directed by Ben Affleck now in post-production.

The casting process will next turn its eye to the roles of Dr. Hector Hammond, one of the key villains, and the alien known as Sinestro.

I haven’t seen Blake Lively in anything so i’ll just have to assume she’s good based on Warner Bros. and Martin Campbell’s judgement. Has anyone seen her in Gossip Girl? How is she?

Green Lantern will begin filming in 10 weeks time, so expect more casting announcements in the near future.

Visual Effects supervisor Karen Goulekas, who has worked on films such as The Day After Tomorrow and Spider-Man, updated her blog recently and revealed that Warner Bros. gave Green Lantern the official green light this week.

From SHH:

Wow! Been a long time since I posted! But today is a day worth posting about!

Green Lantern got the official green light today! And not a second too soon – only 10 weeks out from shooting!

While it’s great news we are a go – now we have to actually get our prep done in 10 weeks!
DOH!

But we have an amazing crew – so we will make it happen!

Now the film has been given the go ahead we should be getting some casting details in the upcoming weeks. The only cast member we know of is Ryan Reynolds, who will of course be playing Hal Jordan.

Green Lantern will be directed by Casino Royale director Martin Campbell, and will be released on 17th June 2011 .

Usually when a new superhero makes the transition from comic to screen we get an origins story which gets us familiar with the characters, the powers, and the universe, and it is often the case that what people are really waiting for is the sequel where the action and story can kick in. From the looks of things Marvel are going down the origins route with Thor and Captain America, so they can set the characters up for The Avengers.

Another superhero making his big screen debut is Green Lantern, and Ryan Reynolds recently told MTV that while the film will be an origin story, the adventure will kick in pretty early on:

“I think you walk away from this first film, and the moments that you remember and the moments that mean so much to you, not unlike ‘Iron Man,’ are the moments where the guy’s not in the suit,” said Reynolds.

However, Reynolds acknowledged that developing those moments amid the cosmic action central to “Green Lantern” is a daunting task — after all, a test pilot who receives a super-powered ring from a dying alien is likely to demand a much different tone than a billionaire industrialist building his own battle armor.

“That to me is the tough thing to get right,” he explained. “And that’s something that they did get right [in 'Iron Man']. You see why this guy’s in the suit, and that’s what’s interesting to me. Not that he is in the suit, but why.”

With “Green Lantern” scheduled to begin shooting next year (possibly in New Orleans), Reynolds shied away from calling the film’s plot an origin story, despite the need to introduce Hal Jordan to mainstream movie audiences.

“It is [an origin story] to a certain degree, but it’s not a labored origin story, where the movie [truly] begins in the third act,” he explained. “The movie starts when it starts. We find out Hal is the guy fairly early on, and the adventure begins.”

Marvel have already got a fairly big head start in creating their superhero universe, and it seems Warner Bros. are cutting a few corners to catch up. I’m sure Green Lantern will be great though. Martin Campbell is a capable director.

Ryan Reynolds has had a 2009 that could be described as ‘above average’. The Proposal was a hit, he got to play Deadpool which he’d been wanting to do for years, and he married Scarlett Johansson. While he won’t be on-screen much in 2010 and I doubt he’ll be getting married again, he will be suiting up early next year to play Hal Jordan in Green Lantern.

MTV caught up with Reynolds recently to talk about the past year, and they asked him about both Green Lantern and Deadpool.

I’ve known about “Green Lantern” my whole life, but I’ve never really followed it before. I fell in love with the character when I met with [director] Martin Campbell. When I sat down with him, I really got what it is that this guy is all about. When you have a guy like Martin Campbell, part of his charm is that he has ba–s 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. He just really knows strategies, he knows the intricacies, and his attention to detail! It’s infectious. I sat down with him, and I could not even believe what he was saying. When I went to the meeting, I was entirely cynical. I thought, “What the hell, I’ll see what they have to say,” and I left the room with a completely different perspective.

Martin Campbell is the director responsible for Casino Royale, which successfully rebooted the Bond franchise. Everything so far is pointing towards Green Lantern being a cool movie, and Warner Bros. need it to be great if they are to compete with Marvel and it’s Avengers line-up.

Now for Deadpool:

Finding the tone of that character alone is such a difficult prospect. I’ve been in so many meetings lately about “Deadpool” and meeting all these writers. Everyone is always looking for that one line, “What is that character?” and for me it’s kind of like, “There’s a guy, and he’s in a highly militarized comedic fame spiral.” That’s not an easy thing to write — an entire screenplay, let alone a franchise. I had a blast playing Wade. Every line I had in that was stuff I thought he would say. It wasn’t something that a writer said to me. It was fun to really create that character, including everything he spits out of his awful mouth.

We haven’t really heard much from Green Lantern director Martin Campbell, which could be because he’s been busy with pre-production and sorting out where to shoot, as the film recently moved out of Australia due to rising cost. Well Empire (via Coventry Telegraph) caught up with him this week, and he spoke about the visual effects that will be in the movie:

“It’s daunting,” he said. “Just the process, something like 1,300 visual effects shots, it’s mind-blowing, quite honestly.”

Campbell said that a lot of the effects shots work will concentrate on the Green Lantern’s power ring. “It’s energized by a battery on the planet of Oa, which taps into the willpower of everyone in the universe. From that ring you can form constructs. So if you got into a fight, you could form a giant fist. Or a fighter plane.”

Campbell’s previous films such as Casino Royale, The Mask of Zorro and Golden Eye haven’t relied heavily on special effects, so he will be walking on new territory with Green Lantern. Ryan Reynolds will be suiting up in around 4 months time and it is expected the film will shoot in New Orleans, Mexico or Canada.

Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern was originally set to begin filming next January in Australia, however there was recent talk that Warner Bros. would move the production to Mexico as things don’t cost the same as they did a year ago and to continue with the Australia shoot would have added another $20 million to the production costs. Nothing has been confirmed yet, although Ryan Reynolds recently appeared on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon and confirmed filming is still on track for a January/February shoot.

From Splash Page:

Though Reynolds insisted that he had to stay quiet on the details of the upcoming “Green Lantern” adaptation, he did reveal one important bit of information – a rough timetable for filming.

“I’m 4-5 months away from beginning shooting,” Reynolds told Fallon, musing that the consequences of leaking additional information could be severe.

“It’s crazy, it’s the only job I’ve ever had that I’m not allowed to really talk about. I think there’s like a representative from Warner Brothers who I’m sure is following me around ready to blow-dart me if I say a single word,” said Reynolds, “I probably have a chip in me somewhere, like if I start talking about it, I’ll just pass away.”

Though Fallon himself didn’t seem very familiar with the concepts or powers behind Green Lantern, Reynolds was able to set him straight in terms of what the movie would encapsulate.

“A lot of [the film] is sort of like a space epic and some of it is on planet Earth,” said Reynolds, “[Green Lantern] has this ring and he’s been chosen to have this power and the ring can kind of create anything that his will or his imagination can conjure up.”

He also said that at this point playing both Deadpool and Green Lantern “makes you just like an Internet hero, nothing really more than that”.