Source:Edward Douglas

March 9, 2009

Producer Donald De Line has been a player in Hollywood for more than two decades, and he's going to be very busy the next couple weeks, as he releases two high-profile R-rated comedies, I Love You, Man (out March 20) with Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, and Observe and Report (out April 10) with Seth Rogen. Both movies are playing at this year's South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, on March 13 and March 16, respectively.

Having had a chance to talk to the producer earlier today, ComingSoon.net just had to ask him about his long-in-development movie based on the DC Comics character Green Lantern, which just had its release date set for December 17, 2010.

We were especially curious about how they were planning on incorporating all the mythology surrounding the character in a way that would satisfy the hundreds of thousands of comic book fans who've been waiting a long time for this movie. "Our story is the Hal Jordan origin story, but creating the character of Hal Jordan that is a real character that will resonate with the fanbase is what we need to do. You have to make him credible and somebody to care about and tell a good story, and I think if we do that, we'll be okay."

"It's going to be a series of big stakes and big action, but it absolutely has a sense of humor," he replied when asked about the humor quotient of the movie. "I think people accept real life, even with really serious situations, with humor as part of that situation, as we experience in life, you have to have that. That's how people cope, so they've done it so well in these other movies. I think that people are absolutely ready. It doesn't have to fall on one side of the fence vs. the other."

Lastly, we asked him to address the rumors about them deliberately going younger with Hal Jordan, something that came out of the bogus stories about Anton Yelchin auditioning, but De Line denied the intention to cast younger. "Not really, late '20s, early '30s."

On another note, we were curious whether there was any word on a sequel to De Line's 2003 hit caper remake The Italian Job, which brought together Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Ed Norton, Donald Sutherland, Jason Statham, Seth Green and Mos Def. Over the years, all of them have been asked about whether the proposed sequel The Brazilian Job might happen, and De Line gave hope for it finally rolling forward. "We're trying right now. They all want to do the sequel. We have a version at Paramount that we're talking very serious about, so hopefully, if we're lucky in the next year we can pull it together. They're all very successful and very busy, which is great, but they all have a real affection and passion for that movie, so they want to come back and do another, which is nice. We'll get them together hopefully."

You can read more about De Line's upcoming comedies I Love You, Man and Observe and Report right here on ComingSoon.net over the next month.