“Casino Royale” director Martin Campbell is reportedly negotiating with Warner Bros to officially be tapped as the director of “Green Lantern”, a live-action adaptation of DC Comics’ emerald-green ring-slinging space cop character.

Producer Donald De Line will be producing alongside Greg Berlanti, who was initially going to direct. With no formal date set for a release of a third Nolan-helmed Batman film and other major DC projects frozen or dead, such as another “Superman” film or the proposed “Justice League” project, “Green Lantern” is being primed to be the next big DC title to hit the silver screen in the next year or two.

The Green Lantern is a title carried by several DC characters, the first being Alan Scott, who debuted in 1940. The “modern” incarnation of the Green Lantern, making him a member of a galaxy-wide police force commanded by an ancient alien race, was first introduced along with the second Lantern, Hal Jordan, in 1959. The Green Lantern is best recognized for their signature weapons, a green ring that focuses its wielder’s courage and willpower into green energy controlled by imagination, and the “power battery” lantern that powers the ring, giving the heroes their name. The Green Lantern books have risen to prominence in the past few years, culminating in crossover events such as “The Sinestro Corps War” and the highly anticipated and upcoming crossover event “Blackest Night”.

Shooting is expected to begin in Spring of 2009.

Stay tuned to Shockya.com for more on the Green Lantern.

By Costa Koutsoutis, (Source: Variety.com)