We live in a movie-making world where performance doesn’t matter nearly as much as it used to. The audience as judge and jury is an outdated concept, and if you’re movie doesn’t earn its money back, that doesn’t mean the funeral pyre needs to be erected. Green Lantern wasn’t exactly dead as a doornail when it hit the box office – it just didn’t shoot up through the stratosphere the way Warners undoubtedly hoped it would. Now, The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that the studio wants to move forward with the franchise even while admitting their disappointment.

As Kermit the Frog once famously said, it ain’t easy being green. The same could be said for modern superhero films and comic book adaptations. It seems a daunting task when you really think about it, the notion that you’re entering into one of cinema’s most expensive endeavors, yearning to please its most incredulous audience while trying to carry the mainstreamers along as well. In some instances, as is the case with Green Lantern, you’re task is to bring a wide audience up to speed on a complex, rich and intensely alien mythology. It ain’t easy. So as an audience, when we see a film like Green Lantern, one that does so much of the most difficult stuff right, but gets almost all the easy stuff wrong, it can be the most entertainingly frustrating experiences of our summer. The whole thing smacks of 2006, when a passionate superhero auteur named Bryan Singer gave the world a lavish, modern version of the Man of Steel in Superman Returns. The things he got right in his pursuit of faith and glossy nostalgia were dazzling. The visual effects were seamless, the world’s hardest working alien was truly spectacular in flight and feat. But when it came down to the most basic elements of storytelling, the parts where we get to human emotions like love and longing, all the personality of a once dynamic character appears to have been sucked out by a cosmic force. Left in its wake was emptiness. Green Lantern suffers,

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr dresses up in green and black spandex and parades around town telling people that he is a superhero who can create anything out of sheer will. Of course, it seems that the only thing he’s able to create is an ever-growing arrest report. Later, Kevin takes a trip to his local zoo where he sneaks into the penguin habitat in order to forge a bond with these flightless birds. Unfortunately, the penguins don’t take too well to him and peck him to near death, leaving Kevin to skulk away to the local movie theater in order to catch a double feature of Green Lantern and Mr. Popper’s Penguins.

Due to an inventory error, we’re now overstocked with Green Lantern merchandise and twenty-three thousand wacky, inflatable, arm-flailing, tubemen. But our loss is your gain, because we’re hosting a contest to give away a ridiculous amount of very cool Lantern stuff. This may take a bit more effort than our other contests, but the prize is worth it (especially if you’re a fan or the friend of a fan who wants to make them insanely jealous). So how do you enter? Glad you asked!

I have to admit, while most everyone else seems to be geeking out over every new image and clip of video that gets released for Green Lantern, I myself am not so taken by the visual design of the film. It all looks a little too dark and muddy for me; I don’t like the organic nature of the suits or how the lantern looks like a big toy. And far too much of the image is made up of computer created imagery. The background, the foreground, the alien characters, even 90% of Ryan Reynolds himself, they’re all just computer generated fakeness. It gets to the point that Reynolds’ face is the only thing that’s real on the screen in some shots. It looks like when JD does Floating Head Doctor on Scrubs. One thing I can get behind, however, is their general design for the Corp. All of the characters are recognizable, and look just like the weirdos I remember from the comic. And one thing I can really give the art department props for is that they didn’t do anything stupid like give Sinestro a ponytail and a goatee. But they were going to.

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, Movies.com‘s John Gholson offers a primer before we all go see Green Lantern, and lead creature designer for the film (and Super 8, Avatar, and many others…) Neville Page talks about creating aliens. Plus, our very own Matt Patches faces off against UGO‘s movies editor Jordan Hoffman in a Movie News Pop Quiz that’ll be one for the books. We follow it up with a Green Lantern review, so stick around. Listen Here: Download This Episode

Bare witness to the awesome power of the Guardians. Fly through Oa and watch as the entire Green Lantern Corps summons the power of its rings. Run in fear as the yellow energy of their greatest foe runs rampant in the streets. There’s no doubt that some of the marketing for Green Lantern has been flaccid, but this trailer takes a dose of the little blue pill and lets it rip. This is a coming out party for a movie that’s really a space opera, and it’s refreshing to see Warners unafraid to show the world the cards it’s laying down on the table. Prepare to be blown away:

Last year, I had the honor of traveling down to New Orleans, piling in a van, heading to a secluded warehouse and talking to an alien. I also spoke with the first human member of an elite group of interstellar heroes, a director who has more energy than anyone at his age has a right to, and I got a glimpse into a world beyond our own. So before comic book purists protest the insanely small number listed in the headline, these are the Green Lanterns hanging up on a wall somewhere in New Orleans – character design sketches to fill out the alien landscape of those who bravely, selflessly, and fearlessly patrol the universe. Some were born from the comic books, others from the minds of the production team. Some will be featured heavily, others will be hanging out (valiantly) in the background. We’ll be bringing Green Lantern set visit coverage to you all week, but to get things started, we figured it would be a good idea to do a round of introductions. Some you already know, and some you haven’t yet had the pleasure, so we wanted to make it official. Green Lanterns, meet the world. The world, meet the Green Lanterns.

You know what’s great about Green Lantern? They aren’t shying away from the fact that the movie is a full-blown space opera featuring a lot of weird-looking aliens. That doesn’t happen everyday. Especially not with a tentpole flick. It’s admirable that the marketing isn’t just coverage of Ryan Reynolds‘s abs, but also the whole gang of strange and wondrous creatures protecting the universe with their magic jewelry. MTV has an exclusive banner that features at least 13 Lanterns (and maybe a 14th if Bzzd is hanging around somewhere). That’s the small version above, of course, but you’ll have to click over to MTV to check out the giant version in all its glory.

Not content with the level of visual spectacle in the upcoming summer blockbuster Green Lantern, Warner Bros has decided to spend another 9 million dollars over the film’s original $45 million FX budget for last minute work and additions. Despite a second trailer that largely blew people away with its visuals, Lantern producers seem to still be a little skittish about response to the film’s first trailer, where unfinished FX gave a bad first impression. Green Lantern’s problem is becoming an industry wide one, where condensed post production schedules are butting heads with more and more films demanding huge amounts of visual effects to create an environment where FX work is all rushed, all the time. Without naming names, we all know that we’ve seen a couple productions lately where the FX work just wasn’t up to the standards of modern technology, and if things keep going in the direction they are, it’s probably only a matter of time before some big film isn’t able to complete its FX work on schedule at all.

The upcoming Daniel Espinosa-directed thriller Safe House continues to fill out its cast. The film is said to be about a CIA safe house where criminals are detained, a young agent who acts as house sitter to the institution, and his attempts at moving a high profile criminal to another location once the house is under attack by a villainous organization. Denzel Washington was the first on board, playing the criminal who needs to get moved, and Ryan Reynolds signed up soon afterwards to play the young CIA agent. Now the rest of the cast is starting to come together as a start date looms. According to Deadline Kurpinova, Vera Farmiga has joined the cast, playing the CIA operative who supervises Reynolds’s character.  This choice was probably a no-brainer for the film’s casting agents as Farmiga has become something of a go-to whenever you need a slightly older, yet still attractive woman to play some sort of authority figure. Whether it be a doctor, or a successful businesswoman, or what have you, throw Farmiga in some business clothes and you’re good to go. Most recently she was seen in Source Code playing, you guessed it, a government agent. Say what you will about type casting, but Farmiga is a solid actress and playing these sorts of character roles is a great way to build a robust filmography and work with a lot of other great people. Plus, you have to appreciate the lady, because every time she gets cast in

The Green Lantern movie has an uphill battle from the start. Why? Because it’s not starring Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, the X-Men, or anyone remotely near that level of recognition to the average viewer. The first question many may ask when hearing there is a Green Lantern movie is “Why?” The second is probably “What?” or possibly “Who?” I’m willing to give The Green Lantern the benefit of the doubt and not just because I have a huge man-crush on Ryan Reynolds. Well okay, yeah, mostly because of that. And so far, much of what we’ve seen looks pretty good. The trailer was fun. And the costume is… Well… Uh…

What is Movie News After Dark? It ain’t messin’ with you, bub. You should know that up front. It’s only bringing you the best of the weekend’s news, tidbits and otherwise noteworthy items. It believes that you shouldn’t mess around either. That’s why it recommends reading it every single night before you go to bed. Today begins with a project that I know many of you are excited about, 20th Century Fox’s Deadpool. A perfect fit is Ryan Reynolds in the titular role, as are Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick on scripting duties. This week the project got a director, effects artist Tim Miller, whose credits include X-Men, X2 and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. He has also served as the Inferno Supervisor (read: Guy Who is In Charge of Digital Explosions) on several other projects. That’s a pretty wicked line of work.

Looks like today will be the Saturday of DC Comics movies. First is was the Superman Blu-ray announcement, and now it’s a 4-minute reel of footage from the upcoming Green Lantern film that showed at WonderCon in San Francisco yesterday. Unlike the previously released trailer, this abridged series of clips explores more deeply the world of the Lanterns and places Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) on Oa in a very real way. Also, that suit is starting to look much better. The entire affair feels a lot less cartoony and more genuinely alien. As in, alien to our world, but not our universe. Consider this your warning shot: one of the movies of summer 2011 is almost here. Take a look for yourself right after the jump.

Here he is. Big and bold. Hal Jordan sporting a look that could break the arm of a truck driver and standing in front of an alien world. Warners has been trying its best to prove that Hal Jordan’s suit won’t make him look like a cheap Mardi Gras body paint enthusiast, and this new poster for Green Lantern actually goes a long way to help that out. It was also wise to show off the huge landscape in the background – what I can only assume is Oa with the green light beaming out of its secret meeting cavern to light the ways of time. Check it out for yourself:

We announced a year ago that Universal was pushing to get R.I.P.D. off the ground in a major way. If they can close Zach Galifianakis for a co-starring role, that ground is going to be a memory. According to the LA Times, Galifianakis is discussing playing the sidekick role to Ryan Reynolds’s Nick Cruz character – a man murdered who makes a deal to give a century of service to the Rest In Peace Department in exchange for the shot at revenge. Based on the Dark Horse comic by Peter Lenkov, the movie should have an action comedy and feature a lot of souls who don’t want to cross over just yet. This all re-raises some questions about Reynolds’s schedule. He’s said before that he would either do R.I.P.D. or Deadpool, but not both. If this ends up shooting this summer, does it kill Deadpool for Reynolds? Plus, even though David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) isn’t directing R.I.P.D. anymore (Red director Robert Schwentke is), Reynolds is set to work with Dobkin this fall on The Change-Up which features him switching bodies with Jason Batemen so Batemen’s character can score with Olivia Wilde. Regardless of the other projects, R.I.P.D. is a flick I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. It’s a different brand of comic book movie, and it could be darkly comedic like a version of Lethal Weapon done by way of Constantine. Galifianakis makes a great addition.

It was almost a year ago that the biggest buzz from the Sundance Film Festival was a little film about a man trapped in a coffin for 90 minutes. It showed the most promise, but it unfortunately fizzled when Lionsgate put it into release last summer. But that shouldn’t stop you from watching it. And if you’re gonna watch it, nothing should stop you from watching it with a drink in your hand. Check out Ryan Reynolds buried alive in the middle of the Iraqi desert, and raise a glass to toast your own freedom.

Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern is DC’s big hope at finally being invited to the adult’s table alongside Marvel, so a lot is riding on this particular green superhero. Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is a test pilot who fantasizes about The Last Starfighter and wishes a colored alien would come to take him away. His prayers are answered… kind of… and he finds himself in possession of a very special secret decoder ring and a destiny to help defend the universe. Along for the ride are his highly unbelievable pilot buddy Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), his slightly more believable bespectacled friend Thomas (Taika Waititi), and evil scientist Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard). Can Jordan become the hero the universe needs?

On Tuesday, Warner Bros. will unleash upon the web a first teaser trailer for next year’s superhero gamble, Green Lantern. I say gamble not because it’s bound to make or break the future of superheroes at Warners — they do still have one more Batman flick coming from Christopher Nolan — but because it’s the first non-Batman superhero flick of a new era. It’s an era that follows restructuring, retooling and the rethinking of how they will use the heroes in the DC Comics catalog. Like Jon Favreau’s Iron Man for Marvel, Lantern will set the tone for what is to come. Whether that means a slow build toward a big team-up movie or not is yet to be determined. But projects like The Flash and a long-gestating stab at Wonder Woman may hang in the balance. So the start of WB’s return to making big superhero movies starts here, with a preview of a trailer from Entertainment Tonight… What makes it most interesting is that while it’s got some silliness, there is certainly a bit of a spark in there. See what I mean after the jump.

In August, I was fortunate enough to trade the heat of Arizona for the heat and humidity of Louisiana in order to visit the set of The Green Lantern starring Ryan Reynolds, a ring that makes him powerful, Mark Strong, Blake Lively and Peter Sarsgaard. I can’t say much about the visit yet (because of the court order), and I wasn’t the only one there (which is why they added “conspiracy” to the charges), but the set visit did yield a ton of really cool information about the film, and FSR will be delivering it straight to your brain like no other site can. While you wait on pins and needles awaiting all that comic book goodness, check out these two pieces of concept art that you’ll only see here (and several other websites). They both feature the design of Oa – the planet where the Green Lantern Corps makes its headquarters – and they’re both worthy of hanging up on your wall next to your poster for The Last Starfighter: The Musical. Don’t let evil or these concept pieces escape your sight, and remember to click to make the images much, much bigger: