NYCC 2011: DC’s Geoff Johns Defends GREEN LANTERN Film

While this summer’s superhero film Green Lantern underperformed at the box office and with critics, it has a defender in Geoff Johns. Johns is the comic book writer who reinvigorated the Green Lantern comic book franchise for publisher DC Comics and who serves serves as DC Entertainment’s Chief Creative Officer, overseeing the creative direction of the comic book line as well as consulting on the various film adaptions of those characters.

Yesterday, at a New York Comic Con panel devoted to the four titles in the Green Lantern comic franchise, Johns was asked about the film and the possibility of a discussed sequel still happening.

My favorite thing about the movie is that introduced the character to a lot of people. I thought Sinestro was great and Hal had a lot of good moments and there’s a lot of really good stuff there. Obviously you want it to be as big as Titanic. I continue to root for it. I hope we get another film in, and it will be live action.

Peter J Tomasi, another of the writers on the comic book franchise, jumped in to say –

One of the things about the film, all of the things Geoff said apply, but I had four eight-year-olds sitting in a row watching it and they walked out of there and all they could think about was blasting each other with rings and talking about the characters. So that is seeding a love for those characters that’s going to go for many years.

Jones added –

A friend of mine’s kid was at my house and I asked him what his favorite superhero was and he said “Green Lantern” without even blinking.

Johns also took a moment to promote the director’s cut of the film which was just released on Three-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo with the new UltraViolet Digital Copyand in doing so obliquely mentioned that this version of the film addresses some of the criticisms leveled at it.

It has a lot of scenes that add a lot of heart to Hal’s story. It’s interesting, you should check it out.