Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively Talk Green Lantern At WonderCon SF

Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, the acting pair that star in the upcoming movie take of the legendary comic book series called The Green Lantern, were introduced to the WonderCon crowd to cheers and ovations, mostly for Ryan Reynolds, the man People Magazine once gave the title "Sexiest Man Alive" to.

Because of that, came almost immediate yells for Reynolds to take off his shirt, to which a minority asked to see Blake Lively's legs.

Hey, the Gossip Girl star's sexy too!

But the subject really was The Green Lantern Movie.

Before Reynolds, Lively (who plays Carol Ferris), and DC Entertainment Chief Creative Officer Jeff Johns (the "Green Lantern guru") were introduced, the standing-room only crowd was given a taste of The Green Lantern movie to come: a well-done 10 minute segment that starts with a visit to "Section 2814," and has Abin Sur, the best warriors of the Green Lantern Corps, escaping near death from a space creature by getting away in a pod headed for Earth. Upon crash-landing, he's rescued by Hal Jordan, a test pilot, but dies before Hal can get help. As he's dying, Abin Sur explains that the "ring" chose Jordan.

The clip was very well done, and should go a long way toward silencing people who speculated that there may be a problem with the special effects in the movie. What this blogger and the audience saw was breath-taking, and will look even better in 3-D, even though the effect really isn't necessary.

That set the stage for Reynolds, Lively, and Johns.

Some highlights from this 31 minutes of video - the entire talk is on it:

1) The movie was made in Louisiana, which points to another trend of Hollywood going to the South (The Last Dance, for example) to make movies.

2) The Green Lantern was the first "super-heavy" special effects movie for both Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, causing Reynolds to deliver a number of funny quips. "You know. Spending six months in a sound stage in Louisiana, staring at the color blue, until you have two large occular cavaties actually feels pretty good when you see that shit right there," Reynolds said, "I highly recommend it." (Referring to the clip that was just shown.)

3) Blake Lively shared that turning brunette to fit the character of Carol Ferris was a "matter of national security" to her bodyguard, who's normally quiet, but is such a Green Lantern fan he was instructing Lively on what to do with respect to her role.

4) Johns says that the movie is "sticking pretty much to the mythology," which shows the high level of respect DC Entertainment has for The Green Lantern's fan base.

5) Ryan Reynolds said his diet while filming in Louisians was awful "All I ate were orphaned children." Mr. Reynolds shared that he spent six months in training before filming, including learning gymnastics. "I'm not an old guy, but I'm not a young guy anymore, when landing from 20 feet onto concrete was hilarious...You can't tell that those (gymnastics guys) aren't six-two. It's pretty hard to back-flip when you're over five-foot-seven."

6) Reynolds says he's a "Star Wars kid" and sees his character as a mix of Chuck Yeger and Han Solo. Someone who can whip out a wise crack and set everyone back to reality.

That's some of the highlights of the panel discussion. The video, at 31 minutes, has it all.

Will Green Lantern Score?

With all of the super hero movies coming out, it's going to be an exciting, yet rocky year for sci-fi movies. The reason is with so many special effects, the audience may be less interested in a movie driven by visuals and want more story. To the extent The Green Lantern delivers on the latter, it may overcome such issues, and if that's the case, it could be considered one of the best movies of its kind ever made.

Stay tuned.