Christian Bale, Kermit the Frog, Green Lantern and ‘Waterworld,’ all in Everyday Hero headlines

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It’s time for Everyday Hero, your roundup of handpicked headlines from across the fanboy universe, and today please try to stay out my sight-line while I’m working...

THE LORD OF THE RING?: Wow, this could be great news. The director of ‘Casino Royale,’ the fantastic 2006 James Bond movie, may be stepping in as the Hollywood guardian for the Green Lantern Corps. There’s no contract yet, apparently, but here’s the story from the trades: ‘Warner Bros. is negotiating with Martin Campbell to direct ‘Green Lantern,’ the live-action film based on the DC Comics hero. Campbell last directed ‘Casino Royale’ and recently wrapped the Mel Gibson starrer ‘Edge of Darkness,’ based on the 1985 BBC miniseries that Campbell helmed. The emergence of Campbell, who also helmed two ‘Zorro’ films and the 007 film ‘GoldenEye,’ puts ‘Green Lantern’ at the top of DC properties being set for movie treatment by WB. While the studio is hoping director Chris Nolan will follow its 2008 smash ‘The Dark Knight’ with another Batfilm, DC projects such as Superman and ‘Justice League’ were expected to happen quickly, but have stalled. Instead, the hot DC titles are ‘Green Lantern’ and ‘Jonah Hex,’ the latter of which has Josh Brolin set to play a disfigured gunslinger in a film that begins production in April, directed by Jimmy Heyward (‘Horton Hears a Who’).’ [Variety] Also, Screen Rant has some rumors and guesses about the cosmic nature of the film...

HI HO, CHRISTIAN THE FROG HERE: In the category of waaaaay too much free time, we bring you a staggering gallery that pairs up photos of Christian Bale and Kermit the Frog. I really don’t know what else to say about this but I...can’t...stop...looking...

‘FISHTAR,’ REVISITED: There’s a fancy new DVD and BluRay edition of ‘Waterworld’ and David Zax writes that instead of a soggy, bloated Hollywood flop, the 1995 maritime adventure starring Kevin Costner might now be viewed as green-minded epic that sailed too soon: ‘Has Waterworld’s moment finally arrived? The movie opens with an image of the globe as we know it slowly being swallowed by blue while a narrator explains that in the future, ‘the polar ice caps have melted, covering the world with water.’ Something similar, if less dramatic, is happening right now on Earth. Global warming is causing seas to rise (though the polar ice caps have little to do with it). In its 2007 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected a sea-level rise of between seven and 23 inches by 2100. While that might not seem like much, it could be enough to make a low-lying island untenable: Recently, the Maldives’ new president announced his intention to buy land to relocate his entire nation if necessary. What if ‘Waterworld’ were an eco-parable whose message was merely ahead of its time?...In the lulls between the blasts, there runs through ‘Waterworld’ a strong environmental current, one that was mostly overlooked or overshadowed in contemporary reviews but that has been noticed since (by the Sierra Club, among others). The first thing we see our hero do in the film is recycle: The Mariner (as Costner’s character is known) has a device that transforms his urine into potable water, which he shares with a small potted lime tree. Even when in a bind, the Mariner insists on piloting his three-hulled catamaran solely with a renewable resource, wind.’ [Slate]

SUPERHERO GAMES, KEEPING SCORE: Now in bookstores, it’s the ‘Guinness World Records 2009: Gamer’s Edition,’ a release from the record-keeping brand name that tilts toward video game culture. They sent over a couple of entries that they thought might catch the eye of gamers who have a soft-spot for superhero fare: 1) The first superhero game -- 1979 Atari introduced Superman. 2) Most Marvel characters in a Spider-Man Game - The 2000 PlayStation ‘Spider-Man’ featured 15 heroes and villains. 3) The first superhero first-person shooter -- ‘X-Men: Ravages of Apocalypse,’ released for the PC in 1997 was the first officially licensed superhero entry in the first-person shooter genre.

ON THIS DATE: The late William S. Burroughs would be celebrating his 95th birthday today if he were still with us, but in 1997 he moved on to some different dimension, leaving this one (and the Interzone) less interesting without him. His searing signature work, ‘Naked Lunch,’ is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary this year as well, so today let’s all shoot up some bug poison in honor of the twisted genius of the Beat Generation. Here’s his recitation of ‘A Thanksgiving Prayer’...

Thanks for reading...

--Geoff Boucher