I am – Hercules!! Carol Ferris, “Green Lantern’s” hot-stuff aerospace heiress with the jones for handsome test pilot Hal Jordan, will be played by 22-year-old Blake Lively, the tall blonde girl from “Gossip Girl” and those “Traveling Pants” movies. Here she is playing an employee of NASA: Director Martin Campbell (“Casino Royale,” “Edge of Darkness”) begins principal photography on “Green Lantern” this March, working from a rewrite by Michael Goldenberg (“Contact,” “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”). The hiring of Goldenberg is particularly good news. An earlier draft of the script had been co-authored by a trio of TV writers with little movie experience, namely “Jack & Bobby” vets Greg Berlanti (“Eli Stone”), Marc Guggenheim (“FlashForward”) and Michael Green (“Heroes,” “Kings”). Ryan Reynolds (“Wolverine,” “The Proposal”) plays Jordan and his new title-character alter-ego, a rookie intergalactic cop with a “power ring” that can do nearly anything he wills it to. In the DC funnybooks, Green Lantern has served a member of the Justice League alongside Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Flash. Warner Bros. is looking to release the live-action feature June 17, 2011. Find the story that will appear in the Monday edition of Variety here.

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