Concept art for Green Lantern
Examples
- Bradley Cooper was the first choice for the role of Hal Jordan before Ryan Reynolds was cast.
- Jon Hamm, Sam Worthington and Chris Pine were also considered for the part of Hal Jordan. Pine would later go on to portray Steve Trevor in Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984.
- Justin Timberlake, Michael Fassbender, Henry Cavill and Jared Leto screen-tested for Hal Jordan as well before the casting of Reynolds. Cavill and Leto would eventually play Superman and the Joker in the DC Extended Universe respectively.
- Keri Russell, Jennifer Garner, Diane Kruger and Eva Green were considered for the role of Carol Ferris before the casting of Blake Lively.
- Jackie Earle Haley and Hugo Weaving were considered for the part of Sinestro before Mark Strong was cast.
- Zack Snyder was offered to direct the film before Martin Campbell was hired, but turned it down due to commitments to Watchmen. Snyder would later go on to helm three films in the DC Extended Universe.
- An early draft of the script contained a cameo by Alan Scott, who was going to be the United States President, and near the end would reveal his own past as a Green Lantern to Jordan, and give him his blessing. He was later revised to become an agent of the Checkmate agency, who would approach and offer Jordan membership. Later drafts finally wrote him out of the film, and replaced him with Amanda Waller. Scott would have been played by Pierce Brosnan, who would go on to play Doctor Fate in Black Adam set within the DC Extended Universe.
- Blake Lively indicated that if the film were successful enough, she would've like to portray Carol Ferris becoming Star Sapphire.
- An early script planned a cameo from Guy Gardner, as a football player whom Abin Sur's ring briefly considers before moving on to Hal Jordan, before it was written out.
- At one point Superman was in the script (he had a cameo as one of the candidates considered to receive a power ring), but he was cut out because the filmmakers didn't want to depend on another superhero for a success.
- There were a few attempts to bring the Green Lantern to the silver screen before this one, the most infamous one being the script written by Robert Smigel in 2004 that would've reinterpreted the premise as a raunchy adult comedy. Very loosely based on the Emerald Dawn storylines, it would've starred Jack Black as a loser furniture store employee named Jud Plato who was selected to become the next Green Lantern on the basis that he "fearlessly" ate severed animals heads for a TV reality show. Reportedly, negative fan reception to this treatment after details of it leaked onto the internet caused Warner Bros. to can the project very quickly. Kevin Smith was also approached to write and direct a Green Lantern film, but turned down the offer.
- The first script draft originally had Legion from Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn as the main villain, until later rewrites changed it to Parallax.
- They originally intended to make a practical Green Lantern costume to be enhanced with CG but the more they experimented with the technology they knew they needed to make it fully CG, as they didn't want to show audiences another rubber/spandex/leather superhero costume. However, there is concept art for a more Batman-style armored GL look.
