The cast of DC and Warner Bros. upcoming big screen adaptation of Green Lantern, featuring Ryan Reynolds as the titular hero and with Martin Campbell directing, has just grown by two. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Temuera Morrison, best known as Jango Fett from the Star Wars movies, has joined the cast as well as filmmaker-actor Taika Waititi.

According to the trade, Morrison will take on the role of Abin Sur, a member of the Green Lantern Corps who gives Hal Jordan his power ring before dying. Waititi will play Hal Jordan’s best friend. They join a cast that, in addition to Reynolds as Jordan, includes Tim Robbins, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard and Mark Strong as Sinestro.

With the addition of Morrison, who I’ve been a fan of since his earlier work in Once Were Warriors, Green Lantern looks to be shaping up as quit a film. Even if it’s being filmed in 3D, which may or may not be a good thing, I’m still getting pretty excited to see it when it’s eventualy released.

Green Lantern begins filming this week in New Orleans with a release scheduled for June 17, 2011.

It appears the search for Green Lantern’s arch enemy Sinestro is finally at an end. Amid speculation that is was going to be Jackie Earle Haley and other confirmed casting news about the film, it now looks as if Sherlock Holmes veteran Mark Strong is the clear winner and will definitely be taking on the role — assuming Geoff Johns knows what he’s talking about.

According to MTV’s Splashpage, Johns visited the New Orleans set of director Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern, the upcoming DC Comics adaptation starring Ryan Reynolds, and once there decided to let a few details about the project slip out via his Twitter account.

“Back from an amazing trip to Green Lantern town a.k.a. New Orleans!” Johns said on Twitter. “Ryan IS Hal. And Mark Strong is going to be a brilliant Sinestro.”

Johns also weighed in via Twitter with an opinion about several other key elements of the films including the inclusion of Kilowog, the Guardians, Oa and more. Said Johns:

“Kilowog, the Guardians, Oa…all breathtaking,” he surmised. “The age of Green Lantern is upon us!!”

It would appear the newly appointed CCO of DC is giving his stamp of approval to the film and also managing to confirm several details for fans everywhere all at the same time. Seeing as how Johns is the man pretty much responsible for putting Green Lantern back on the map and probably had a great deal to do with this feature film adaptation moving forward, his thoughts should go a long way to put fan’s worries about the film’s quality to rest.

Personally, I was pulling for Guy Pearce to be cast as Sinestro. Still, Mark Strong could be a great choice. I guess we’ll see soon enough. What do you guys think?

Principle photography for DC and Warner’s newest superhero flick, Green Lantern, starts up this month. With that, we’re expecting to see lots of news on the casting front of the film. On that note, Heat Vision is reporting that Academy Award-winning actor Tim Robbins will be joining the cast.

Robbins is set to play Senator Hammond, the father of the film’s villain Hector Hammond, played by Peter Sarsgaard. The role will be mostly supporting, but with a name like Robbins filling the shoes, we can expect it to be longer than 30 seconds.

Robbins will join an already hearty cast of Ryan Reynolds, Sarsgaard, Blake Lively, and a rumored Mark Strong as Sinestro. Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) is taking on the task of directing, and he’s already reassured the easily irritable fan community by stating that most of the film will take place off-planet.

Last week, some interesting concept art got leaked online, and may have given us a first glimpse of what the rest of the Green Lantern Corps could look like. We’ll be sure to keep you posted as more information on the film comes our way.

Mel Gibson returns to the big screen after a personal and professional hiatus of over seven years. His last starring role was in 2002’s We Were Soldiers. Many are hailing Edge Of Darkness as Gibson’s “comeback.”  So is it?  Meh. He is fine as a grief stricken Boston Detective, but he won’t be winning an award any time soon. There are a dozen actors that could have navigated this role equally well. That’s not knocking Gibson, but it’s a pretty  generic role.

Edge of Darkness veers into spoiler territory early, and often, and I don’t like to spoil movies, so here is a spoiler-free synopsis. Gibson plays Craven,  a single dad who goes to pick up his grown daughter from the train station. It is obvious he loves her very much. She seems slightly distant. Sensing something is wrong, he implores her to tell him what it is.  Shortly after they get home, she becomes seriously ill. Craven takes her to the hospital, but as soon as they reach the front door, his daughter is violently gunned down in front of him.

The rest of the movie concerns Craven trying to uncover the mystery behind his daughter’s death. It involves government conspiracies, shady political types, evil corporations, and unconscionable greed. Because Craven has no family left, his vengeance is of the reckless variety, which too often translates into over the top.

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With more and more news hitting daily on the upcoming Green Lantern film, there will of course be more information hitting the web that shouldn’t actually be out there. Between how big of a film this is turning out to be, and how much of a fanbase the DC character has developed over the decades of print, there were bound to be a few leaks.

With that news comes some potential new concept art for the alien life that we’ll be seeing in the film. Martin Campbell already confirmed that we’ll be seeing Kilowog, Abin Sur, and Toma-Re in the upcoming flick, but these is the first time we’ll be seeing what they could actually look like.

The images first hit on one of the Green Lantern fan message boards, and was later confirmed by several sources to be legit. This comes only days after Warner announced that Sony will be doing the special effect work for the upcoming film.

Check out the concept art after the jump, and be sure to keep it here for more Green Lantern news as it comes our way.

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Casting for the upcoming Green Lantern movie has become a little more interesting over the last few days. It was long rumored that the role of Sinestro, Green Lantern’s nemesis, would be played by Jackie Early Haley (Watchmen, A Nightmare on Elm Street).  It even went so far as to being kind of confirmed.  It turns out that Haley’s involvement may have been rumor all along.

According to director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale), Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes) is in talks to play Sinestro and discussed the Haley rumor with MTV:

“No, that’s completely wrong,” said Campbell of the persistent rumor, which popped up again recently despite Haley denying any involvement with the “Green Lantern” movie. “In fact, we’re in negotiations with Mark Strong to play Sinestro.”

I have no doubt this will bring another layer to the debate on who would be the best actor to play Sinestro. Even here at The Flickcast, it was discussed thoroughly. While I originally was in favor of Haley, I conceded to Chris’ choices of either Guy Pearce (The Hurt Locker) or Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix).  I wonder how Mark Strong will stack up against them?

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While he may still be technically in “negotiations” with Warner about the role, many sources are citing that Peter Sarsgaard has signed on to Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern to play opposite Ryan Reynolds. The role in question is that of Dr. Hector Hammond, the would-be main villain of the film.

According to The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision, who originally broke the story, this villain doesn’t seem to be one many remember.

Sarsgaard will play Dr. Hector Hammond, the pathologist son of a senator who is seen as a disappointment in his father’s eyes. He becomes infused with psychic powers when he discovers a meteor. The character was created by John Broome and Gil Kane in the early 1960s.

This puts an end to the rumor that the villain of the film would be Sinestro, which is the Green Lantern’s most obvious villain. An interesting route to take, but it looks like Campbell is casting young for the film. Between Reynolds, Blake Lively (Gossip Girl) as Carol Ferris, and now Sarsgaard, it seems that the cast will be aimed at a younger demographic.

Green Lantern is set to shoot this March in New Orleans.

Latino Review has an exclusive look at who might be Carol Ferris, the lucky lady that doesn’t get the ring from Ryan Reynold’s “Hal Jordan” in the upcoming Green Lantern film from DC Entertainment and Warner Bros.

Ferris has been described as “the daughter of aerospace mogul Carl Ferris. She works for her dad’s company FERRIS AIR, got an MBA, and has a lifetime crush on Hal Jordan.” The website seems to believe that the role comes down to the following five actresses: Eva Green, Keri Russell, Diane Kruger, Blake Lively or Jennifer Garner.

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While news about the upcoming Green Lantern movie is still pretty sketchy, details are starting to trickle in. The latest is pretty exciting. Ain’t It Cool News is reporting that Jackie Earle Haley may be playing villain Sinestro.

Haley is probably best known at this point for playing Rorschach in Watchmen which came out last April.  However, as notorious as Rorschach seemed he’ll be getting upstaged soon enough.  When next we see Haley he’ll be wearing the hat, sweater and razor glove made infamous by Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot.   Unfortunately, as deadly as Krueger was as a nightmare serial killer can he really compare to a villain feared throughout the galaxy?  Hopefully we’ll get to find out.

In conjunction with this comes a hint that Superman may also appear in the Green Lantern film. While no details have emerged regarding this, it makes sense that DC would emulate Marvel’s efforts to integrate their various comic book films.  Further, given the legalities DC has been facing regarding the Superman property this may help prove they are making efforts to reinvigorated the character after lackluster reviews of Superman Returns.

In other Green Lantern news, Warner Bros. has been forced to pull production from Australia:

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Its been some time since I was interested in a movie featuring Mel Gibson. In the past, his work in movies like Mad Max, We Were Soldiers, Payback, Braveheart and the Lethal Weapon franchise showed that he knows how to play someone on the edge who does what’s necessary to get the job done. Plus, those characters weren’t afraid to kick some ass. Now, as seen in this new trailer for Edge of Darkness, it seems Gibson is returning to the kind of role that made me a fan of his in the first place.

In this new film, written by William Monahan and directed by Martin Campbell, Gibson plays a Boston detective whose daughter is killed when a hit targeted at him goes wrong. Of course, he’s not going to let that one go so he starts his own investigation to determine what happened. Once he digs deeper he discovers a larger conspiracy and that his daughter may have been the target of the hit all along. Plus, I’m sure he probably kicks a bit of ass along the way.

With the caliber of people involved including screenwriter Monahan, who’s recent work on The Departed is top notch, director Campbell who showed his action prowess with Goldeneye and Casino Royale and with Gibson seemingly returning to form in a role showcasing his talents and his dark side, this film looks pretty interesting. Although, it does remind me a bit of Liam Neeson in Taken, which could turn out well for this film seeing as how Taken did quite well.

Edge of Darkness hits theaters next January. Until then, be sure to click through and check out the trailer.

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