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Writer Greg Berlanti Talks Tone in Green Lantern & The Flash

by Ethan Anderton
September 27, 2010
Source: Hero Complex, MTV

Since we still haven't seen an official trailer for Green Lantern, many fans are still left wondering what we can expect from the adaptation of the DC Comics superhero. Even more undefined, and much further away, is the lingering adaptation of another DC property with The Flash. Though we recently got a status update on both potential franchises, writer Greg Berlanti was kind enough to recently deliver his description of the tone for both upcoming films. Honestly, the titles he mashes together to create some semblance of tonal comprehension are a bit confusing, but they're also somewhat interesting. Read what Berlanti says below.

While speaking to Hero Complex about Green Lantern, Berlanti talked about Hal Jordan's (Ryan Reynolds) journey as some sort of cross between Top Gun and Star Wars. So we're looking at a hot shot Jedi fighter pilot? I guess I'll just let him explain:

"The character itself was 'Top Gun' before Maverick. He was a guy who had to learn how to care. He shut down early in his life because of something that happened to him, and suddenly he doesn’t just have to care about himself, he doesn’t just have to care about the planet, he has to care about the entire universe. It was writ so large. The other side of it was that he was always the comic-book version of Luke Skywalker, imagining that you’re picked for this group of heroes that’s there to defend the entire universe. It always had this great kind of wondrous scope to it, and as a kid who ran around in his Superman underoos, it was a chance to do a superhero movie that went off planet. When you look at all the superhero characters, Hal Jordan is considered sort of Tier 2, but when you talk about which ones have gone off planet and gone beyond our world, he shoots up to No. 1 for a lot of people and goes to the forefront of everybody’s mind."

In addition, Berlanti talked to MTV about The Flash, and if you thought his explanation of Green Lantern was a bit off kilter then you'll be absolutely flummoxed by his comments about The Flash. Here's what he had to say:

"I think it's tonally somewhere in between ['Green Lantern'] and 'Dark Knight.' You're dealing with somebody who is already a crimefighter in a world of those kinds of criminals and that kind of murder and homicide," Berlanti continued. "I find you talk a lot about different films when you're working on a film, and we spend a lot more time talking about 'Se7en' or 'The Silence of the Lambs' as we construct that part of Barry's world, then I thought when we got into it. It helps balance a guy in a red suit who runs really fast. With ['Green Lantern'] we used to say there's a space opera component and then there's the down on earth In 'The Flash,' there's the sci-fi component and there's the crime component and it's fitting those two things together. And the sci-fi thing, we obviously want to nail that and honor that and do that in a way that feels visceral and real and cool and probably more in the tone of 'The Matrix' films or things like that."

Certainly sounds like some unexplored territory for the superhero genre, but I guess we won't really know how the film feels until we see a trailer. Obviously since The Flash is much further down the road and hasn't even completed the script, we'll be waiting awhile to see anything from that movie. But with Green Lantern, I'm thinking we'll get a trailer pretty soon, likely to be attached to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in November. I know that Warner Bros focus tested a few different versions last month, so it's only a matter of time. What do you guys think of Greg Berlanti's take on Green Lantern and The Flash?

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