Back in June, Warner Bros. hired Greg Berlanti (No Ordinary Family), Michael Green (Smallville) & Marc Guggenheim (FlashForward), all of whom worked on the screenplay for the original Green Lantern currently in production, to assemble the treatment for a second Green Lantern installment. In addition to writing the treatment for the scarlet speedster’s first trip to the big-screen, and will also write the screenplay for one of the two projects.
Guggenheim recently spoke with Newsarama and talked about Green Lantern, it’s proposed sequels and the big-screen adaptation of The Flash, which is said to take inspiration from Geoff Johns‘ recent work and features the Barry Allen version of the character. Guggenheim talked about his visit to the set of Martin Campbell‘s Green Lantern set in New Orleans:
“I went down to New Orleans two months ago to see some of the Green Lantern filming, and I got to see a whole bunch of things in connection with the movie. In all honesty, I was completely blown away. I don’t think it dawned on me how huge this movie would be until I went down to New Orleans and really saw everything that I saw. It was incredibly eye-opening. I was really rendered speechless. There’s just no way for me to put it to words, just how huge this movie is going to be.”
Guggenheim then spoke about the planned sequel, and the rumors that a third Green Lantern movie is already in development:
“I think where that came out of was, when Greg Berlanti originally pitched the movie to Warner Bros., he pitched three movies. So there’s always been, and he’s said this publicly, that there’s always been enough story for a trilogy. The scope of the character and the character’s world requires that. But we’re really just focusing on the treatment for Green Lantern 2.”
Although Guggenheim and friends have completed their treatment for The Flash, they haven’t started work on the actual script yet:
“I think it’s very hard to talk about these characters in a closed-ended, sort of non-sequel way, especially characters like The Flash and Green Lantern, which have such rich, long histories. You can’t help but talk about the characters and go, ‘Oh, I really want to do the movie where we get to this moment, or that moment.’ So you’re always talking in terms of sequels, but no, nothing’s planned. We haven’t even written the script yet for The Flash. It’s very much one step at a time for The Flash. We've turned in the treatment for Flash," Guggenheim said of the movie, which will be based on the DC Comics speedster. "And we're talking about Green Lantern 2."
Guggenheim thinks the sequel excitement is terrific:
“it’s terrific that people are talking along these lines, I think that talk really comes out of the great amount of faith and the movie and the optimistic feeling about it. So I think that’s only a good thing.”
Guggenheim also said that while he’s in favor of the idea, he can’t confirm any possible Flash/Green Lantern crossovers or cameos, as those sort of decisions get made high above his pay grade:
“I have all sorts of my own ideas and things I would like to see or like to do. And I’m certainly a voice in favor of cameos and Easter eggs and trying to tie the movies together, But you really have to talk to DC about that.”
Green Lantern is slated to hit theaters on June 17th, 2011 and is directed by Martin Campbell and stars Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong, Angela Bassett, Temuera Morrison, Jon Tenney and Tim Robbins.
