Warner Bros. has narrowed down the choices for the star of its Green Lantern movie, and considering the three candidates have been publicly named, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, I’m thinking the studio should let the fans decide. Put the screen tests up online, allow us to ask a few questions of each of the eligible bachelors actors and then permit us to pick our favorite as though it were some kind of movie-casting version of The Dating Game.

In a way, we, the moviegoers, will end up entering a long relationship with the person put in the role of Hal Jordan, aka Green Lantern, and we don’t want this to be the old-fashioned arranged-courtship sort of ritual we typically get from Hollywood. It didn’t work for the last Superman movie, and many of us aren’t even that happy with the current Batman. Warner Bros. needs to learn from its mistakes and embrace democracy.

So, who should it be? The runners-up are: Bradley Cooper; Ryan Reynolds; and Justin Timberlake.

If you need help making up your mind, check out what the film bloggers have to say after the jump. I’m sitting this one out due to my unfamiliarity with the superhero, but I’d be curious to see how Timberlake would do in such a role.

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• Surely this comes as no surprise to anyone, but the Academy has bypassed its rule for the Best Picture category to allow The Reader four producers named as nominees. This special exception was made due to the film’s “rare and extraordinary circumstance” of having two of its producers, Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, die during production. Though The Reader is a dark horse for the top award, there is now a slight chance we’ll see three posthumous Oscars awarded on February 22.
• If ever there was a franchise that could use a do-over, its Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Fortunately, Warner Bros. is rebooting the series and re-adapting the popular video game in a way that will “bear no resemblance to the original pictures.” That doesn’t necessarily mean it will be better, but it leaves room for that possibility.
• The excellent Brazilian filmmaker Jose Padilha (Bus 174) has been stacking up Hollywood gigs since he won at Berlin last year with The Elite Squad, but the first project to go into production will be The Sigma Protocol, based on Robert Ludlum’s final novel, which will be modernized to focus on the present economy rather than on Nazis. Wait, does this mean recession fetish trumps Nazi fetish?
• Joe Carnahan has put his troubled Pablo Escobar film to the side, for now, in order to direct and co-script The A-Team for producer Ridley Scott and executive producer Tony Scott. Could this be the greatest no-nonsense TV adaptation since S.W.A.T.? Carnahan’s view on the matter makes it seem so: “Fox hired me to make it as emotional, real and accessible as possible without cheesing it up.”
• Dueling Steve McQueen biopics!

• The 2009 Sundance Film Festival will open with the claymation feature Mary and Max from Oscar-winning director Adam Elliot. Featuring the voices of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette, the film tells the story of a 20-year pen-pal correspondence, though Variety’s synopsis makes it sound creepier by noting that the friendship is initially between an 8-year-old girl and an obese, 42-year-old man.
• Sony is making a movie about an African-American who spends 34 years in the White House. No, it’s not a hopeful prophesizing biopic of an 8½-term Obama. The adaptation of A Butler Well Served by This Election will tell the true story of Eugene Allen, who served Presidents Truman through Reagan.
• Another film based on a true story is being made at Paramount about a journalist who blows the lid on a con man posing as a federal agent assigned to clean up a drug-ravaged Missouri town.
• And yet another film based on a true story, this one described as “Erin Brockovich-style,” is in development to tell the story of multiple tragedy-stricken Collene Campbell and her fight for victims’ rights laws in California.
• Twilight has now prematurely sold out more than 2,000 shows scheduled for tonight and this weekend, which Variety claims has given all the major studios “Twilight envy.” Really? All the studios? Because Warner Bros. seems pretty well-endowed these days.

Warner Bros.’ surprise decision last week to move Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from November to next July caused quite a stir. Fans were upset. Entertainment Weekly was embarrassed. The only people not bothered seemed to be the Twilight crowd, who benefited in the release date jumble when their anticipated adaptation moved up its opening to fill the vacancy.

But why did the studio suddenly push back its major fall tent pole? Especially after receiving such favorable buzz surrounding its recently unveiled teaser trailer? Warner’s official statement seemed little more than a “just because” stance. So, ever the skeptic and speculator, I’ve compiled this list of more likely excuses:

10. Equus - My first thought after hearing the news was that Harry Potter’s penis was the cause. And I guess I think like Roger Friedman, who is claiming it’s the truth. Of course, unlike Friedman, I don’t really believe there’s any relation between the date change and the fact that Radcliffe will still be appearing nude on Broadway through the fall movie season (Equus runs from September 25 to February 8). If anything, I think it’d help the release of Half-Blood — what vacationing family in NYC wouldn’t want to make it a double feature over Thanksgiving weekend? First watch your kid march in the Macy’s parade, then head over to the Broadhurst Theatre to see Potter’s wand, and finish up the day with a movie screening at the Ziegfeld. OK, so families are apparently more interested in the Billy Elliot musical. And according to a quote in the new EW, Potter fans might be able to hold out for a nude Radcliffe in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2.

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