A new Highlander film has been in the works for a few years now, with one-time Bioshock director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo at the helm. Nothing has really happened with it, but it appears that the project just got a shot in the arm because Variety reports that talks have begun with Ryan Reynolds to take on the role of the immortal swordsman. More information after the jump.

The original 1986 film starred Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery, and is one of those movies that is a cult classic arguably for being “so bad, it’s good.” Summit and Lionsgate are behind the reboot of the property, and seem keen on Reynolds based on his previous showmanship with a blade in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and his long-discussed Deadpool spinoff. Reynolds also used a sword in Blade: Trinity if I recall correctly, so he definitely knows what he’s doing at this point.

Nothing is signed yet, and Reynolds could eventually walk away from this project in favor of something else, but what do you think about the potential casting? Would you be interested in seeing a Highlander reboot with Reynolds holding the sword?

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There should be more thrillers like Safe House: smart, engaging movies made for adults. With a propulsive score and breakneck pacing to match, the movie tears through a series of double-crosses, shootouts, and narrow escapes usually reserved for summer blockbusters. Lucky for us, it looks like summer’s come early this year.

Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) is a low-level CIA babysitter for a safe house in South Africa. He’s paid his dues for a year, and now he wants nothing more than to move to Paris with his girlfriend and take on a position with more responsibilities. When agent-turned-traitor Tobin Frost (Washington) appears after years off the grid, Weston gets an unexpected house guest. But Frost has information that men are willing to kill for, so the safe house is compromised and Weston’s the only one who can get Frost to the nearest extraction point. But not only is he dodging bullets from trained mercenaries, he also has to contend with Frost himself, a master manipulator super-agent who has his own plans for escape.

Safe House is a great example of how a fresh vision can elevate a tried-and-true concept. Espinosa takes a familiar story and deftly applies his signature to it: the blown-out color palette seems to mirror Weston’s heightened experiences, and the disjointed editing – transitions oftentimes bleed audio from one sequence into visuals from the next – reflect both Weston’s increasingly taxed mental state and Frost’s commanding ability to slip through the proverbial cracks. The South African setting also sets the film apart from others in the genre, with a nice set piece at a crowded football (soccer) stadium and an action-heavy shootout in a tiny shanty town. For Espinosa’s American filmmaking debut, working with a comparatively huge budget and acting superstars for the first time, Safe House is quite an accomplishment.

Washington delivers yet another strong performance, devoting himself to his character so much that he actually endured a brief session of waterboard torture during filming. He’s always been a captivating person to watch, and his natural charisma shines through even in a “bad guy” role. Reynolds is good, too; naive but always believable, he carries the film dramatically and holds his own during some ferocious fight scenes. Vera Farmiga and Brendan Gleeson both have fine supporting turns, and it seems Farmiga is carving out a nice little niche for herself as the authoritative woman on the other end of the phone (she played a similar role in last year’s Source Code).

The script, by first-time screenwriter and former Us Weekly editor David Guggenheim, tears along at an incredible pace, quickly setting up the action and leaving the exposition to be revealed further down the line. It’s a conventional premise, but he sprinkles in just enough unique moments to give the film a life of its own. The action beats are fun to watch, and the film’s denouement touches on some meaningful points about government transparency. Safe House is the type of movie I hope for when I go to the movies: well-acted, stylish entertainment that gives me something to chew on besides popcorn. Until next time…

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The has been talk of a Deadpool movie since X-Men Origins: Wolverine and it edged closer to a reality last year when visual effects artist Tim Miller was hired as director. Little has been heard since, but now Deadpool creator Robert Liefeld has hinted that some test footage has been shot, and he may have seen it.

From Bleeding Cool:

They’ve got a great director on the movie, they’ve got a great script. I may or may have not seen some sort of test of footage that would blow your mind if you saw it and go holy crap and that’s Deadpool in costume. Katana swords, guns, shooting people’s faces off and making me laugh. And I may or may not have seen something that looks just like that. And you’ve got what would amount to the first R Rated X-Men movie. Because that script is R Rated.

They may or may not have wanted to shoot eight minutes to see how it would play. And all I can tell you, it’s close. It’s closer that it’s even been to going, or going Naaah, that’s too scary a proposition to make a R Rated Deadpool movie.”

While promoting the X-Men: First Class DVD and Blu-ray in October producer Lauren Shuler Donner said “we have a few more things to do. And then it’s up to the studio to decide whether we’re going to go forward or not”, so shooting this test footage may be what prompts 20th Century Fox to give it the green-light. Or it may not.

Zombieland writers Paul Wernick and Rhett wrote the script which has been described as “irreverent and violent”, so the studio is obviously taking a big risk here by making an R-rated movie with a new director. There were concerns Ryan Reynolds wouldn’t be able to play the Merc with a Mouth if Warner Bros. wanted to get going on a Green Lantern sequel, but with Lantern under-performing over the summer I don’t think those concerns remain.

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Universal Studios has released the official trailer for Daniel Espinosa’s spy thriller Safe House. From the looks of the trailer, this is going to be quite the twisted dark thrill ride we’ve desperately needed, with the Award winning Denzel Washington and charismatic Ryan Reynolds as our guides.

With CIA cover-ups, a deadly escort mission, an extremely solid cast, and an everything-isn’t-as-it-seems vibe, what’s not to like? Safe House also has a killer supporting cast including Vera Farmiga, Robert Patrick, Brendan Gleeson, Liam Cunningham, and Sam Shepard among others.

Check out the trailer below:

When a CIA-operated safe house is targeted by a group of bad guys, the facility’s house-sitter is tasked with the dangerous job of moving the criminal who is being hidden there to another secure location.

It’s great to Washington back as a silently psychotic bad guy/good guy/anti-hero that he executed so well in Training Day, but honestly it’s a relief to see him in a modern day action film not involving trains! He’s just one of those actors that gets completely lost in his character, often giving us a intensely memorable performance, and it looks like his character in Safe House is no exception. Reynolds’ role is thankfully far away from his typical “funny guy” and, dare I say it, charming “superhero” (last summer’s Green Lantern, but don’t get me started on that), and brings him back to the occasional gritty thriller territory. Reynolds’ character is your typical “wrong place at the wrong time” type of hero, a role that he’s done before, with the outrageous Smokin’ Aces and the unfortunately underrated Buried being his most recent roles of that archetype.

From the looks of the trailer, Washington and Reynolds have an explosive chemistry that really escalates the amount of tension towards the end of the trailer, something we can expect in intensely high doses in the film. I’m glad that these type of spy thrillers still exist, because honestly, when we have the CIA as a plot device nowadays, it ends up turning into to a wannabe Bourne movie and they’re becoming unnecessarily repetitive. If you’re looking for a comeback of the gritty, tension and twist-filled spy thriller, look no further than Safe House.

Safe House hits theatres on February 10, 2012.

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Warner Bros. has set the Green Lantern Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Download release date for October 14th, 2011.

With a budget of around $300 million ($200m production costs + $100m marketing) Green Lantern is not going to make it’s money back at the box office, which currently stands at $194 million worldwide ($115 in the US, $78m overseas). Warner Bros. will be needing solid DVD and Blu-ray sales if they’re ever going to recoup their costs and make a sequel. Warner Bros. film group President Jeff Robinov said earlier this year he believes there is still an audience for a sequel, but said it needs to be “edgier and darker”.

Here are the DVD/Blu-ray specifications:

Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack:

• Theatrical Film (3D & 2D)
• Extended Cut (2D only)
• Maximum Movie Mode with Picture in Picture Pods
• The Universe According to Green Lantern
• Ryan Reynolds Becomes Green Lantern
• Justice League #1 Digital Comic
• Additional Scenes
• Preview of Green Lantern: The Animated Series
• BD-Live

Blu-ray Combo Pack:

• Extended Cut*
• Theatrical Film
• Maximum Movie Mode with Picture in Picture Pods
• The Universe According to Green Lantern
• Ryan Reynolds Becomes Green Lantern
• Justice League #1 Digital Comic
• Additional Scenes
• Preview of Green Lantern: The Animated Series
• BD-Live

DVD:

• Preview of the Justice League #1 Digital Comic
• Preview of Green Lantern: The Animated Series

*Extended Cut included only on 2D Blu-ray Disc

Green Lantern was released on June 17th and follows test pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), who becomes the first human to join the Green Lanterns, a small group of warriors dedicated to maintain peace in the universe. Blake Lively, Mark Strong, Peter Sarsgaard, and Angela Bassett co-star.

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Despite the fact Green Lantern is set to make a “substantial” loss for Warner Bros., the studio is apparently still intent on making a sequel.

To date the movie has made $154 million worldwide, $114 million of which it made in the US (without 3D it could have easily made less than $100 million). It’s staggered release internationally over the next few months could help it edge closer to $200m worldwide, but with a budget of around $300 million ($200m production costs + $100m marketing) no profit will be made here.

In a recent interview with Hero Complex Warner Bros. film group President Jeff Robinov said he believes there is still an audience for a sequel, and says it needs to be “edgier and darker”.

“We had a decent opening so we learned there is an audience,” said Warner Bros. film group President Jeff Robinov, pointing to the film’s box office debut of $53 million. “To go forward we need to make it a little edgier and darker with more emphasis on action…. And we have to find a way to balance the time the movie spends in space versus on Earth.”

Warner Bros. already has an outline for a sequel on hand written by Greg Berlanti, Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim, who all worked on the script for the original. However, several people familiar with the thinking of executives there who were not authorized to speak on the record say Warner will likely make significant changes to the outline, if not start over from scratch, in developing a sequel.

Green Lantern is going to make less than The Hulk, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Ghost Rider despite costing twice as much, so making a sequel is obviously not good business sense. Warner Bros. have made clear for a while that they want DC characters to replace Harry Potter, but Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises is the only movie capable of filling the boy wizards shoes.

One hint as to why the studio is trying (desperately) to create a franchise out of Green Lantern lies with Jeff Robinov’s interest “in bringing DC heroes together for a Justice League movie.” The studio apparently has “a solid script” for The Flash, but in order to have a big team-up movie they will need Green Lantern. With Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 set to become the 3rd highest grossing movie of all-time Warner Bros. could simply write Green Lantern off financially, and try to make the sequel work (without director Martin Campbell).

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With reports of a budget around $300 million ($200m production costs + $100m marketing) the $53 million opening last week for Green Lantern was seen as a disappointment. It made less than X-Men: First Class despite being in 3D, and following a 66% drop at the US box office this weekend it is currently performing less than The Incredible Hulk did at the same stage three years ago.

Despite this, and the poor reviews, Warner Bros. is still said to be moving forward with a Green Lantern sequel.

From THR:

Warner Bros. is already planning a sequel to Ryan Reynolds’ superhero pic Green Lantern, despite the film’s soft performance at the box office.

Sources say Warners still believes in the franchise, even if the studio is “somewhat disappointed” with Green Lantern’s result.

Warner Bros. president of domestic distribution Dan Fellman said the movie is settling in, pointing out that fanboy pics often see a significant drop-off in their second weekends.

If the $250 – $300 million budget reports are correct Green Lantern is never going to make it’s budget back at the box office as it’s also performing soft overseas. DVD and Blu-ray sales will help, plus any merchandise, but being the lowest grossing superhero movie of the summer is no way to start a new franchise, especially if it’s the most expensive out of them all.

Last year Warner Bros. re-hired writers Greg Berlanti, Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim to get started on the script for a Green Lantern sequel, however director Martin Campbell said recently that he wouldn’t return.

Would moving forward with a sequel be the right move, or desperation? Warner Bros. have already stated they intend to fill the gap left by the Harry Potter franchise with DC characters, but it seems they only succeed if Christopher Nolan is involved.

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Of the plethora of superhero movies coming out this summer, I had the lowest expectations for Green Lantern. The marketing bounced back and forth between good and bad trailers so often I was convinced the movie would be a disaster. Strange aliens, outer space, a giant cloud taking over a city? Could even action maven Martin Campbell (Goldeneye, Casino Royale, Mask of Zorro) pull this all together into a coherent and interesting movie? Surprisingly, Green Lantern is far from a catastrophe. It’s certainly not transcendent, but it’s imminently watchable entertaining summer fare that surpassed expectations.

After a ton of exposition setting up the history of a group of intergalactic warriors known as the Green Lantern Corps, the film whips through space and shows the demise of Abin Sur, the Corps’ best soldier who crashes on earth and instructs his energy ring to find a worthy successor. Enter Hal Jordan (Reynolds), a test pilot for Ferris Industries with a chip on his shoulder. See, his old man was also a pilot and went down in flames, so he’s cocky, brash, arrogant – you know the type. Sound a bit like Top Gun? The comparisons don’t stop there. A flight simulation early in the movie was so close to Tony Scott’s iconic imagery that the filmmakers may as well have inserted footage directly from Tom Cruise’s dogfight sequences into Green Lantern and called it a day.

And though this movie has shades of “we’ve seen this before,” it eventually goes to some interesting places. Hailed as a “space opera” since its inception, the film lives up to that description by following our newly-minted hero to a planet called Oa. Home to other green lantern members – including the Guardians of the Universe and Sinestro (Mark Strong), the hardass leader of the Corps – Oa is a home base for Hal Jordan as he trains under the tutelage of a hulking alien named Kilowog (voice of Michael Clarke Duncan). And while the “power gaining/training” sequences in superhero films are almost always the most plodding plot points, this one is surprisingly cool. The Green Lanterns (Hal Jordan is the only human, but there are thousands of others across the universe) harness the energy of willpower, and their rings allow them to create whatever their minds can imagine. So in this training sequence, what should have been a fairly boring segment of the movie as we wait for Hal to fight the real bad guys was actually entertaining; by setting up they can create anything from their minds, the audience never quite knows exactly what’s going to be created, so we’re always at least a bit surprised with what we see (which is more than some superhero movies can say).

The plot details aren’t worth hashing out here – it essentially boils down to an intergalactic war between willpower and fear – but Martin Campbell and the four screenwriters are able to take a difficult premise and condense it into easy-to-digest summer entertainment. You probably won’t see anyone referring to Green Lantern as “the greatest superhero movie since The Dark Knight” (as some did with X-Men: First Class), but it’s far better than it has any right to be. Why? Ryan Reynolds. The man is just so damn charming, it’s impossible not to root for him. I think he may be the perfect mainstream movie star. Those who witnessed the rise of Tom Cruise may disagree, but I think Reynolds has more charisma and screen presence than Cruise, one of the biggest movie stars in the world.

Blake Lively, on the other hand, has none of Reynolds’ charm or comic timing. As Carol Ferris, she’s Jordan’s childhood sweetheart; though the character is ostensibly supposed to be a strong powerful female figure, she’s basically just the same old love interest we’ve seen time and time again. Don’t get me wrong – she’s serviceable in the role, but she doesn’t elevate the material nearly as much (or as effortlessly) as Reynolds. She stands around and looks hot, providing the occasional “I’m disappointed in you” speech to our hero to spur him into action.

The rest of the cast is mostly wasted: the voices of Geoffrey Rush and Michael Clarke Duncan are used briefly during the training scenes on Oa, and the versatile Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes, Kick-Ass, RockNRolla) scowls his way through about 15 minutes of screen time. Perennial favorite Peter Sarsgaard does some interesting work as scientist Hector Hammond. While examining the body of Abin Sur, Hammond becomes infected with a part of the Parallax consciousness, allowing him to read minds but unfortunately expanding his head to disgustingly monstrous proportions. Add to this the fact that Hammond has been jilted by Carol Ferris since childhood in favor of Hal Jordan, and you’ve got a motive for vengeance. Academy Award winner Tim Robbins is perhaps the most underused of all, playing a politician that could have been played by just about any male actor with a pulse. My roommate brought up a good point in our post-viewing discussion: he was hoping Robbins would provide the type of gravitas that Jeff Bridges brought to the role of Obidiah Stane back in the first Iron Man film, but sadly that character wasn’t given the opportunity.

To me, the most impressive aspect of Green Lantern is the disparity between the visual effects in the trailers and the finished effects in the movie. On many a GeekTyrant podcast, my cohorts and I discussed the strengths and weaknesses of Reynolds’ suit, a completely CGI creation. It works much better than early looks indicated, though the mask is still the most laughable aspect of the costume (and the film thankfully addresses this). Parallax, the villainous cloud that uses fear to consume souls – and that’s not a joke, by the way – is rendered beautifully. Never has an evil space cloud looked so good. Scenes in which it rampages through a city looked cheesy in the trailers, but work fairly well in context. Even the 3D is effective, truly utilizing the vastness of space to enhance the experience and giving the audience a sense of distance that was lacking even in the other world-spanning superhero movie released earlier this summer, Marvel’s Thor.

I’d imagine any film version of Green Lantern was always fighting an uphill battle between balancing the comic book lore for fans and spreading the appeal to a wide audience, and though I still hold to my beliefs that Ryan Reynolds would have been a much better Wally West (aka The Flash) than Hal Jordan, I believe Martin Campbell was able to use him to strike that balance to a successful degree. The action is fun and interesting to watch, the heart of the story is straightforward, but there are enough visual flairs in place to separate it from the seemingly never-ending stream of superhero films we’ve been getting since Singer breathed new life into the genre with X-Men back in 2000. This is as mainstream a version of this story as we’ll get, but for fans of the character (and fans of this genre in general), I imagine that will be enough. Until next time…

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The rise in 3D now means we’ll probably be getting a lot more trailers specifically to showcase the 3D in certain films. We just got a 3D version of the Transformers: Dark of the Moon trailer which will be shown on 3D screen starting this weekend, and now Warner Bros. have released one for Green Lantern.

The trailer begins with Geoffrey Rush, who voices Tomar-Re, explaining the origins of the Green Lantern Corps (something I would have appreciated in previous trailers as I haven’t read any of the comics). There’s lots of new footage, which should look quite good in 3D if that’s your viewing method of choice.

Watch the trailer below:

As well as Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jodran, the movie also stars Blake Lively as Carol Ferris, Mark Strong as Sinestro, Peter Sarsgaard as Hector Hammond, Tim Robbins as Senator Hammond and Angela Bassett as Dr. Amanda Waller, and will hit screen on June 17th, 2011.

Will you be seeing Green Lantern in 2D or 3D?

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Roughly a year ago Warner Bros. re-hired writers Greg Berlanti, Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim to get started on the script for a Green Lantern sequel, which may move forward in the near future if the first film is a success next month.

While Ryan Reynolds and the cast have likely signed for multiple films, director Martin Campbell has not, and in a recent interview it was hinted that Campbell wouldn’t be returning to direct the sequel if it gets made.

From the latest issue of Total Film (via CBM):

Inevitably, chat turns to the possibility of follow-ups. Campbell admits it will be nice to have all the backstory and complicated rules of the character already taken care of. “This film has become the instruction manual if they do any further ones. It’s what we call pipe laying,” he says. Not that he has plans to return for a sequel – like Bond, he loves ‘em and leaves ‘em.”

While we could speculate that Campbell didn’t enjoy making Green Lantern and all those VFX gave him a headache, I think he’s just the type of director who likes to move onto different things. After rebooting Bond with Casino Royale he decided not to return for Quantum of Solace, and he waited seven years before making a sequel to The Mask of Zorro, so spending several years in the same movie universe obviously isn’t his thing.

Any suggestions for who should direct the sequel? (if it happens)

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