I'm sure most of you know about WB's plans to make a Jack Black starring comedy version of Green Lantern back in 2004. It's kinda become the stuff of internet legend, as it would seem that uproar from the fan community actually succeeded(at least in part) in making Warners rethink the idea and go with a more serious take.
Now Smigel(
SNL, Late Night With Conan O'Brien) speaks to Vanity Fair about the whole thing. From where the original idea for a comedic take on the character came from, to Jack Black's involvement, to the movie WB ended up making with Ryan Reynolds that is currently diving opinion all over CBM. Here are some excerpts..
Asked whether Martin Campbell's movie has anything in common with his script, and where the idea came from to write it as a comedy came from..
I haven’t seen it, so I can’t speak to how the movie itself works. I know that when the idea was pitched to me to do a comedy about Green Lantern I did a quick review of the specifics of Green Lantern. And I thought, Well, of course this could be a comedy. Basically just the premise that the wrong guy gets the ring and can do all kinds of goofy visual jokes—because the visuals are so potentially ridiculous. What appealed to me about it on a comedic level was that, in order to be a superhero, this requires no physical skill or talent. All it requires is owning this ring. Automatically, that’s a comedic premise. I was told they’re doing it as a comedy, that’s the way they’re going, so I didn’t really think about whether this was a wrong thing to do. I just knew that this was the movie they were making, and when I thought about the potential as a comedy, I felt like, yeah, I can do this.
The first draft of his script ended up online and was torn apart by fans. Smigel talks about this as well as WB's decision to rethink things..
I wrote this first draft, which, unfortunately, is the one that’s online. A lot of it was in my re-write—the studio gave me notes and I did a re-write about a half-year later. The studio, when they gave me the re-write notes … at one point I had a long discussion about whether or not to make it Green Lantern or whether to create a make-believe character. They were already asking me, “What if it’s not Green Lantern? What if it’s very similar, but you change it and make it a fictional superhero so we can make that a straight comedy?” Maybe foolishly, I argued that I thought it was funnier to make it a real take on a real cartoon character. That was the first time I sensed that they were rethinking this, and I’d like to think that it wasn’t because they didn’t like my movie. And I totally get why they would rather make a serious superhero movie if [they] thought it could succeed. Because then it’s a tentpole and you can make sequels and all of that. The unfortunate part of it was … look, there were a lot of Internet angry reactions just to the idea of Jack Black.
Funnily enough(or not as the case may be), the version that did get made by Martin Campell does contain some fairly broad humor. And some of those funny construct ideas are kept too..
VF: Well, your script has Jack Black making a racecar bed to land on. Ryan Reynolds’s Green Lantern does save a helicopter by creating a racecar and a racecar track for it to land on.
Smigel: That’s kind of … interesting. Why did he create a racecar? Just for fun?
As in your film, Green Lantern’s best friend knows that he’s Green Lantern. Later his friend asks, “A racecar track?” and Hal responds, “ I saved them, didn’t I?”
Is his best friend a comic-book expert?
It’s a little different. Other superheroes aren’t mentioned like in your script. Although his friend does declare, “You’re a superhero!”
O.K., that’s different. That doesn’t seem … O.K., good. The Writers Guild sent me the shooting script and I didn’t even bother to read it. I was like, How could this possibly be anything like what I wrote? That seems like a staple of superhero movies. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I should have read it. [Laughs.] I doubt I would have gotten any credit for two jokes or two ideas.
And finally, how did it all ultimately fall apart?..
I meet with Jack and the producer. Jack gives a long list of directors that he would be happy to work with … and then there’s just no traction. It just sort of petered out and we found out that they just changed their minds and wanted to do a serious Green Lantern. I never got a direct phone call about it. That’s sort of how Hollywood works.
For the full interview click the link below. It's good stuff.
By TwitterButtons.com