Breakout: For almost three years now, Blake Lively has been steaming up our tellies with Gossip Girl, which, if you didn’t know, follows the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite.

All that changed this week when she was cast in the high profile superhero flick Green Lantern as Carol Ferris. Playing opposite beefcake Ryan Reynolds as his love interest, this bit of surprise casting could be just the boost that Lively needs to further an in-progress movie career (see: Private Lives of Pippa Lee and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants).

Okay, so we might be jumping the gun a little bit. Green Lantern doesn’t technically come out ‘til 2011. That said, Lively will also be appearing in Ben Affleck’s next directing gig The Town, out later this year.

Now if we could just convince DC that Leighton Meester, Lively’s Gossip Girl co-star, would make the perfect cinematic Wonder Woman we’d be happy little film-bunnies.

Damaged Goods? The rushed production of Green Lantern might do her a disservice.

The New: Reese Witherspoon