The Big Rumor: Chris Pine Is Actually Playing Green Lantern
I have been trying to decide whether or not to run this story because, while I trust Latino Review, this sounds so out there and requires so much manipulation on Warner Bros' part that I have a hard time fully swallowing it. According to the site all that casting news about Chris Pine being Steve Trevor in Wonder Woman? A total smokescreen. In reality the actor is being romanced to play Hal Jordan in the upcoming Justice League and Green Lanterns.
A couple of things:
1) Pine is wrong for Hal Jordan. If WB is going to have multiple franchises going they shouldn't be afraid to make the heroes feel unique and not keep chasing that cocky playboy shit that Iron Man established. Hal Jordan is a military test pilot, a risk-taker for sure, but also a conservative and a bit of an authoritarian. Maybe Pine showed that side in Jack Ryan, but like most of the world I haven't seen that movie yet. To me casting him reads too much like going back to that Ryan Reynolds well - just too jokey, too loose.
2) If Pine is circling Wonder Woman but is playing Hal Jordan that must mean everything about that movie has changed with the director switch-over. That movie has always been conceived as a period piece, and Hal Jordan simply couldn't be Green Lantern in any of the time periods that have been pitched. I don't have a great understanding of contract law, but I assume that if Pine is in negotiations to be in that movie - and again, I really believe those stories, coming from the trades, are true - then he's going to be in that movie. And I don't know how Hal fits in. Bookends in the modern day?
3) I liked the idea of casting a well-known actor as the love interest. It felt right and empowering for Wonder Woman. Pulling out the rug from under that and having Pine be yet another hero is boring to me.
Like I said, I trust LR. This story is just so dependant on WB exercising powers of media manipulation that I have never seen them exercise that it feels far-fetched, like it's a crossed-wires kind of scenario. We'll know come Comic-Con.
