Geoff Johns Hopes Green Lantern Is More Than A Trilogy

I was there as a Green Lantern guru. I've been writing Green Lantern stories for seven years, so when they started talking about the film (in 2008), they brought me in to tap into what I was doing with the books and make sure we were celebrating everything that was Green Lantern. A lot of the heavy lifting for me was when Michael Goldenberg was writing a draft of the script. We worked a lot on the mythology, making sure that its foundation, which is about overcoming fear, and the core characters were represented. But it was a really collaborative effort. I wasn't a cop. It wasn't like, "Make his boots shorter!" That's useless. It was more about, "Why is Hal Jordan a compelling character? What is Sinestro's real motivation? Why is he so driven? What are the attributes of the Green Lantern Corps' and Guardians (of the Universe) that you want to accentuate?"

It borrows a lot from the recent changes that were made to the mythology, Green Lantern: Secret Origin, which is a book I wrote a few years ago that retells the origin of Hal Jordan. But the film also takes things from all decades of Green Lantern stories.

There are definitely plans for more Green Lantern films. I would hope it's more than a trilogy. I think Green Lantern has a lot of movies in it, a lot of stories to tell. The Flash, which I wrote the treatment for, is also in development, but I can't say much more than that.

You know, I just never get used to the title! As CCO, I oversee the creative development of film, television, animation, interactive, and licensing with the other Warner Bros. divisions. My team and I go through the libraries of DC and Vertigo, which is the more mature brand, sort of like the HBO of comics. We pick out things we think could be live-action shows, films, animated series, or direct-to-video. Then we brainstorm with various Warner Bros. and Franchise Management divisions. That's essentially what we do all day.

There are stories throughout the decades that work really well. There are also really great characters. For instance, there's a character called Hourman. He's been around for 60 years, but has never had his own series. So we develop him in house a little bit more, and then we talk to the people at Warner Television about what their take could be. Raven, who is part of the Teen Titans, is another character we've explored. Raven's very well-known and loved, but she's always been part of a team. You've seen Rosemary's Baby? Picture that kid grown up. So it's a really interesting mythology to delve into. Vertigo has a comic, 100 Bullets, which is a great story if you like crime comics, and it's going to be a great TV show. Vertigo comics tend to create their own worlds, so we can see clearly what each story line is, and consider them for television or film.

The new stories won't take precedence over the older ones, because they're different entities. Publishing is run by Dan DiDio and Jim Lee, the co-publishers, and Bob Harras, the editor-in-chief, and they've laid out a publishing plan for September. The editors and creators are doing a whole lot of new takes on characters.

The one thing I'm trying to do with Justice League is to really make it accessible, so that anybody can pick up that first issue and understand it. Anybody. These characters are icons, and so the public sees them a certain way, but behind the masks, they are people. They make mistakes, they have egos. Batman and Green Lantern are the focus of the first issue, and they're exact opposite characters. Batman hides in the shadows, uses fear as a weapon, and is really grounded, while Green Lantern is this big, glowing green guy who can overcome fear and doesn't hide himself. They shouldn't work together. That's the point of the book. [Johns reveals a page of Lee's beautifully rendered pencil layouts of a glowing Green Lantern descending upon an annoyed Batman looking up from the pavement.] This is the first time they ever meet. The public might see them as symbols, but behind the icons are people with problems, viewpoints, and good and bad traits. That's what I want to explore. There's also more humor in it than we've previously had.