Kyle Chandler in Talks to Play the Green Lantern
James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU is slowly coming together – despite the onslaught of heroes Gunn is packing into Superman – and today, another piece of the puzzle was revealed. Deadline exclusively reports that Kyle Chandler is “in negotiations” to play the Green Lantern, or one of them, anyway. The DCU will be leaning into the fact that several characters have been the Green Lantern in DC Comics (many, if you count the entire Lantern Corps), and it will feature at least three of them prominently. Nathan Fillion is playing Guy Gardner in Superman, while Chandler will likely portray Hal Jordan on the HBO TV series Lanterns. Lanterns, which is being developed by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindeloff, and Tom King, will center on Hal Jordan and John Stewart, the latter of whom has not yet been cast, and will be a detective story with the two Green Lanterns that James Gunn likened to True Detective. Kyle Chandler has plenty of TV experience under his belt, having starred in two successful shows during his career, Early Edition and Friday Night Lights. He’s also been in movies such as Peter Jackson’s King Kong, Super 8, Argo, The Wolf of Wall Street, and a couple of the Monsterverse movies, Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs. Kong. (He only has a bit part in this, but check out Mulholland Falls if you’ve never seen it.) There’s no premiere date for Lanterns yet, but it’s expected to start filming early next year.
I like this bit of casting. I’ve never been a big Green Lantern fan – I’ve mostly read him in Justice League appearances, and the character doesn’t appeal to me all that much – so I’m not the guy to ask about how faithful a screen translation this will be. But I like that he is allowing for some good actors to find their way into the DCU, between Kyle Chandler and Nathan Fillion. Kyle Chandler is one of those actors that doesn’t get me excited at the mention of his name, but I always like him a lot whenever he’s in something. (See Ryan Phillippe.) And he plays lots of different roles equally well, whether he’s a straight-laced dad in Super 8 (which I didn’t care for, but he was good in it), a vain movie star in King Kong, a crusading government agent in The Wolf of Wall Street, or a crooked lawyer in The Lyon’s Den. It’s funny how he can sort of turn his charm and looks on or off, depending on the role. He plays them up in King Kong, where he’s the Hollywood stereotype who finds himself lost when everything goes wrong on Skull Island. (He has a terrific line where he tells someone expecting him to live up to his screen persona and save the day, “Heroes don’t look like me, not in the real world. In the real world, they’ve got bad teeth, a bald spot, and a beer gut.”) But in The Wolf of Wall Street, there’s a moment where the film shifts from the opulent, decadent parties of Leonardo DiCaprio’s world to Kyle Chandler, the good guy standing up for what’s right, sitting on a subway train as he heads home to his lousy apartment, and Chandler has this perfect hangdog look on his face that tells you exactly what the movie is trying to convey. I’m glad to see him get a role like this, and it makes me hopeful that the DCU will cast some really interesting actors as the superheroes and villains as it unfurls. (Remember when Marvel used to do this?)
Let us know what you think of Kyle Chandler playing the Hal Jordan Green Lantern in the comments!
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