The heat is being turned up on the Green Lantern lately. After a long bout of silence followed the casting of Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan, we finally were informed recently that Blake Lively would be joining him in the female lead. This news is now being followed-up with reports that Peter Sarsgaard is in negotiations with Warner Brothers to join the cast as the evil villain Dr. Hector Hammond.

If all comes together, this is how the characters work: Lively plays Carol Ferris, who runs her father’s aerospace company and hires Reynolds’ Hal Jordan as a test pilot. Jordan is sent out to a crash site that turns out to be an alien who gives him the powerful ring that makes him the Lantern. And finally, if Saarsgaard is cast, his Hammond character is a pathologist with daddy issues who gains psychic abilities from a meteor.

Green Lantern is being directed by Martin Campbell. Campbell has directed a pair of Zorro movies in The Mask of Zorro and The Legend of Zorro, as well as a pair James Bond movies in Goldeneye and Casino Royale. His latest film is the Mel Gibson starring Edge of Darkness, which comes out on the 29th of January.

Green Lantern is planning to begin filming in March with a June 17, 2011 release date currently marked off.

[Source: THR]