Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern

I'm a comic book nerd. I'll admit it. I love anything with a man in tights. Wait....that came out wrong....

How about, I love anything with a superhero in it. Yeah, that sounds better.

Well, so far it seems like Marvel is kicking DC Comic's royal butt when it comes to making movies. Marvel has blown away its superhero counter part with movies over the last decade.

Marvel has a ton of movies set up in the near future (not to mention the past success stories of the Spiderman Trilogy, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, X-Men, and of course the Fantastic Four starring Jessica Alba).

Over the course of the next few years they'll be releasing Iron Man 2, Thor (which will star Natalie Portman) a Captain America movie, and the much anticipated climax of these five movies (including the Incredible Hulk) with The Avengers in 2012.

Well, in attempt to battle back, DC is releasing a Green Lantern movie with a release date of June 17, 2011.

And for the lead role, they took a page out of the Marvel playbook and cast Ryan Reynolds as the Green Lantern. This comes from Superherohype.com

Warner Bros. Pictures has hired X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Proposal star Ryan Reynolds to play the title role in the anticipated Green Lantern, scheduled for a June 17, 2011 release.

Based on the DC Comics hero, the action-adventure will be directed by Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, GoldenEye) and produced by Donald De Line and Greg Berlanti. Berlanti wrote the script with Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green.

The Hollywood trades say that Reynolds and his camp entered negotiations for the part Friday, after the studio held two rounds of screen tests, along with actors Bradley Cooper and Jared Leto. Justin Timberlake also did a screen test. The studio had holding options on the actors, but, except for Reynolds, those expired Monday. Reynolds' option would have expired end of day Friday.

Production is expected to begin in January.

The "Green Lantern" was created in 1940 by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell. Introduced in 1959, Hal Jordan is a second-generation test pilot, an ordinary man who was given the power ring and battery (lantern) by a dying alien named Abin Sur. When Abin Sur's spaceship crashed on Earth, the alien used his ring to seek out an individual to take his place as Green Lantern: someone who was "utterly honest and born without fear."

Reynolds recently starred in Fox's "Wolverine," in which he played Wade Wilson/Deadpool. The character is now being developed for a spin-off to which Reynolds is attached. He also played Hannibal King in Blade: Trinity.