There have been debates on some of the DC Comics properties that I have been reading on posts as of late. Many were correct and many still had questions so let me help clarify to the best of my knowledge and I love hearing what you all know also fellow Comic Bookers. Pretty much everyone everyone knows that Batman and Superman are properties of DC Comics and Iron Man and Captain America are properties of Marvel. But what about lesser known characters such as Watchmen for example. For years Watchmen’s movie rights were in dispute however Warner Brothers and Paramount pictures came to an agreement to co-exist with the film.
Characters such as Watchmen are a DC property as for V for Vendetta, Constantine, The Losers & History of Violence are DC/Vertigo they are with DC because DC owns Vertigo, Red is DC/Wildstorm, DC owns Wildstorm, as will characters like Preacher later to have his own film.
DC has many different branches and Vertigo and Wildstorm are two very well known by the comic book world.Look on back of Blu-Ray and DVD packages and the DC logo is on back except for History of Violence and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. DC did not own the rights to this movies at the time I think but they are with DC, It would have been good for DC to do at the time similar to Marvel with Fox and had their name on movie franchise credited for it.
In 2005, Batman Begins debut on the big screen and was the first WB/DC film to have the then new and current DC star logo in the beginning of the film as others like Superman 2, Superman Returns, V for Vendetta, The Dark Knight, Watchmen, Jonah Hex, Red, & many of the DC animations followed with famous logo. Now we see WB/DC Comics latest film addition Green Lantern has the latest.Constantine and The Losers had a different looking Vertigo/DC Comics sign at the beginning. Actually before all of the other DC films and Marvel films, Superman the Movie had the Action Comics book of DC at beginning of movie when fan turns the page.
In 1998, Blade released was actually the launching pad for Marvel characters. In 2000, the very well known X-men started a new film revolution for Marvel and the Comic Book Film Industry. However it was our friendly neighborhood Spider-man from Sony that was the first to have the Marvel pages flipping before our very eyes on the big screen in 2002.
In 2008, Iron Man had a similar look to the Marvel pages flipping as we had seen in Spider-man & X2 to name a few, however Iron Man was the first to have Marvel Studios flipping on the big screen.
In 2011, Green Lantern has the DC logo but if U noticed at the beginning it showed it with new style with the universe behind it, GL face in the middle and the new twist “the DC star” and not “DC Comics star logo” which is still the same company and I loved how they did that.
People bottom line is this Green Lantern was not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. Green Lantern does not deserve to be called “the worst comic book film of all time & does not belong on the worst comic book film of all time list either.” It is a film similar in the ranks of Superman Returns, X-men the Last Stand, Spider-man 3, Iron Man 2, Daredevil, & Electra. They are all films that “Are good but could have been better.” That means they are still good enough to have a sequel or sequels.
I would not put this Green Lantern movie in the ranks of Batman forever, Batman & Robin, The Spirit, Steel, Hulk 2003, 1990 Captain America, & 1994 Fantastic 4 because those were the actual in some peoples opinion the worst CMB films ever. Hulk dragged very long in many opinion including mines and The Spirit was very confusing with way to many jumping from scene to scene.
Green Lantern mainly struggled from weak writing but weak writing does not mean totally bad. The script just needed work, some scenes were rushed but not through the whole movie. I have seen films more rushed such as Xmen 3 & Transfomers 2 in which they were all over the place at times.
Every CMB movie will not be The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Superman the Movie, Spider-man & Iron Man. However Green Lantern could actually use and then have something in common with TDK for example and that is good story telling. Christian Bale said it himself, “You can have a movie that is explosive and full of action but if it does not have a good storyline it will not hold up” & I most certainly agree. Green Lantern needed the story told better that’s the main thing. Maybe just maybe WB/DC should get better proof reading of the scripts say from people like Chris & Jonathan Nolan or the Wachowski brothers of the Matrix films to review the script to make sure it is good enough to be a story *just an option folks, don’t chew my head off lol* that may help. I give those examples because they are wonderful storytellers of film.
As many of you Comic Book Film Fan legends already know that is what Richard Donner did for Superman the Movie. Donner told WB/DC that Superman should not be taken as a joke, Superman should be taken seriously and it was a great move because Superman the Movie became one of the greatest Comic Book Movies of all time.
I do think there will be a Green Lantern 2 and I think that WB/DC will take a look at the problems fans expressed their opinions about and fix those problems as well as have a longer epic film. I looked at Green Lantern as an episode similar to X-men in 2000 “I knew there was something special they had for later.” The worst thing WB could do is not make another Green Lantern because for one it is not Green Lantern who did not totally catch people’s imagination in the film it was the writing. We all know how it is when we want to give up at something or say it is too hard, yeah we can quite we have free will but we know if we quite it will be in our mind standing there saying “why?”
WB does not need to give up on Green Lantern they just need to go a little different route, keep the same cast, only reboot if they do not decide to make another Lantern film for several years similar to Batman and The Incredible Hulk. Remember they had a sort of long hiatus from theatres.
WB/DC should bring Green Lantern’s next movie out in the same summer as The Flashes movie (yes I believe Flash will still happen) and maybe begin the cinematic DC Universe all the fans are desiring maybe having Hal have a cameo in Flashes movie because Hal Jordan and Barry Allen are best friends in the mythology & I believe it can and will make a remarkable team up on the way to a much wanted and needed Justice League movie.
Bottom line we are the real critics but think of Green Lantern as the Dallas Mavericks. The Mavericks lost game 1 of the 2011 NBA Finals and people were already shouting “Dallas it’s over for you!” However the Dallas Mavericks are the new NBA World Champions. I know movies are different from sports but just like you should not or should I say “if you did” should not have count out the Mavericks, Don’t count out the Green Lantern because in game 2 or should I say movie 2, GL could become a bigger winner than you ever imagined. Look forward to your feedback fellow Comic Movie Bookers, peace!