Warner Bros. Hires Green Lantern 2 Screenwriter

With the first Green Lantern just barely wrapped and the finished film not even close to being in the can, Warner Bros. has already hired a screenwriter for the sequel. Micheal Goldenberg, who worked on Contact, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and the first Green Lantern, got the job.

During Comic Con, Green Lantern comics writer Geoff Johns said that he thought of the first film as the opening chapter in a trilogy, and rumors have already started to fly that second and third films are firmly planned, possibly even to be shot back-to-back, with production beginning before the first film is released.

Setting aside all that as rumor for now, hiring a writer to pen the sequel suggests that WB wants to be ready to pull the trigger on the sequel as soon as possible, should that seem like a good idea. The studio has to work with the schedule of rising star Ryan Reynolds, which includes competing for his time with Fox, which has Reynolds lined up for Deadpool. But there's a long time to go before we know how well the first film does; Green Lantern opens on June 17, 2011. [Variety]