After Warner Bros. showed 4,000 WonderCon fans almost ten minutes of footage from Green Lantern (which was the same footage I saw at CinemaCon the day before), I went backstage to talk with producer Donald De Line.  While the buzz on Green Lantern has been low, by Monday night, everything will have changed.  That's because the ten minutes of footage played huge and WB will be releasing almost four minutes of it online either later today or tomorrow.  So if you're at home and wishing you could have been here, you'll get a taste of it very soon.  Trust me, the footage looks so much better than I expected and Green Lantern has joined Thor, Captain America and X-Men: First Class as the can't miss comic book movies of the year.During the interview with De Line we talked about the 3D post conversion and how it's been planned all along, who and what Parallax is, reveals there are 25 fully CG-animated Green Lantern characters besides Kilowog, Tomar-Ra and Sinestro, says around 25-30% of the film takes place on Oa and he talks about creating the planet, talks about his custom-made Green Lantern sneakers and shows them to the camera (they are really cool), and he explains why they couldn't do Ryan Reynolds costume practically and reveals:

"When he’s brought to Oa for the first time, they map his body, he’s the first human being to be a Green Lantern. So they don’t really know what he’s made of, so we have this really cool sequence where they dissect and scan Hal Jordan and the ring creates this suit for the first time for a human being."

Hit the jump to read or watch the interview.

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Here's the time index of the interview along with some choice quotes.  If you're a Green Lantern fan, I really suggest watching the interview as you'll learn a lot about the movie and you'll see an awesome collectors item.

Donald De Line

  • 0:14 How he feels after screening the footage at Comic-Con.
  • 0:41 How did they decide what to show? “Honestly, this is the stuff that’s the most finished so far. We have so many visual effects shots that are still outstanding that we’ve been really up against the wall, we’re racing to get the movie out June 17th, plus we’re converting to 3D. So really what we’re showing you is the stuff that are sequences that would hang together the most with the visual effects we have finished right now. So we have awesome stuff coming, we just didn’t have it ready to show. So this is really a good representation of what we had ready.”
  • 1:19 Will footage be put on Apple in the near future? “I believe tomorrow possibly there would be some version of what we saw here today that may be 4 minutes. Today’s was 9:55 [minutes long], tomorrow’s I think is 4. It’ll go out online.”
  • 1:37 Will the sequence with Parallax be shown in the Apple footage? “I think there will definitely be parts of it, I’m not sure if it’s there in its entirety, but there will definitely be parts of it.”
  • 2:15 Talk about Parallax in general and how they make him terrifying. “It’s a really interesting thing because Parallax is a creature who feeds on fear, and he sucks the fear out and the fearful souls out of beings, whether they’re human beings or alien creatures. So he’s kinda this amalgamation of all these horrible terrified souls that he consumes, so it’s almost like a living Dante’s Inferno if you will. And that’s a really complicated, bit of a heady kind of concept and the artists and the CG animators we have worked on it for months and months and months and we just started seeing finished shots, so we would have artwork that was supposed to represent it, but we really didn’t have the shots. And then finally it was this giant release, it was like three weeks ago and we got our first Parallax shot and it was like ‘Ah!’ we were so excited about it and we thought it worked so well. But it was a nail biter, you know you have to go on a lot of faith.”
  • 3:28 Talk about the costume. “Our concept is that the costume is created out of the green energy of will, just like the ring is powered by the green energy of will just like the central battery on the planet Oa is completely comprised of green energy. So the suit is green energy, and we didn’t want it to be a spandex suit that he hangs in his closet and puts on. When he wills the ring to become the Green Lantern, and he can do that through the willpower to create this suit and go into his powers, green energy from the inside out creates this suit. And he is, when he’s brought to Oa for the first time, they map his body, he’s the first human being to be a green lantern. So they don’t really know what he’s made of, so we have this really cool sequence where they dissect and scan Hal Jordan and the ring creates this suit for the first time for a human being.”
  • 4:33 Addresses rumors that Michael Clarke Duncan will voice Kilowog. Says they’ve talked about him “very very seriously” but they haven’t made their final decision on the voice of Kilowog yet. Says there won’t be any more big names announced for the cast.
  • 5:15 How many Green Lanterns will be featured? Says they featured 25 fully CG-animated Green Lantern characters besides Kilowog, Tomar-Ra and Sinestro. Besides that, there are 25 “key Lantern” characters featured throughout.
  • 5:58 How much of the movie takes place on Oa? Says around 25-30% of the film takes place on Oa. Talks about the detail going into creating the planet.
  • 7:07 Talks about his custom-made Green Lantern sneakers, New Balance 993s, and shows them to the camera. Features the oath on the inside of the sneaker and a Green Lantern logo on the back.
  • 8:43 What parts of the merchandising excites him most? Says the toys coming out of the Mattel line is fantastic.
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    9:22 What about the ring? Says there will be versions of the ring that light up. There’s a replica of the lantern as well, and a special edition that lights up when a special version of the ring is held up to it.
  • 10:31 Are there Easter Eggs to other future DC character films? Says there aren’t for other characters, but there are “other kinds of easter eggs one might find,” relevant to the Green Lantern universe.
  • 11:10 Talks about casting. Says they knew Ryan was right for the role on the spot. Tested a bunch of different actresses opposite Ryan and his chemistry with Blake Lively was “brilliant.”
  • 12:12 Filming in New Orleans. Talks about the benefit of filming in the city and why they chose it. Being a city on the water, it was easy to create Coast City. They also have a brand new shooting stage, a screening room for dailies and 3 soundstages.
  • 13:15 Is this the most challenging film he’s done so far?
  • 14:09 Talks about using 3D. Says they knew they were going 3D before they started filming. Watched lots of conversion tests until they felt comfortable.
  • 14:57 Future projects? Says he’s still absorbed in Green Lantern at the moment, but they’re also working on a sequel script for the film already.

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