Sadly, the prospects are less than stellar for the box office performance of the Green Lantern movie. Predictions from experts point to an opening weekend around 50 million, not a promising one for a movie with a reportedly very big production budget. If it pulls off amazing word-of-mouth, maybe it has a shot at pulling a Batman Begins-like performance, but tbe truth is critics are tearing it a new one as well. The chances of the property becoming a serialized film franchise do not look good right now.
I never really cared for the infamous rivalry between DC and Marvel. I love characters from both companies, and pretty much all the best writers and artists have worked for both companies at some point. DC knows the struggling comic book market wouldn´t benefit at all from Marvel disappearing, and vice-versa. Any fanboys who mock WB and DC need to realize that, if GL flops, it´s bad for the whole superhero movie subgenre, for a number of reasons:
A great potential franchise is wasted – The GL comics have a rich mythology and characters that could lend themselves to many great epic movies. It´s the most sci-fi, Star Wars-like superhero universe, one that can add a different flavor to a pretty crowded market.
Less superhero franchises – If GL bombs, we can kiss a Flash or Wonder Woman movie goodbye. If you think it may only affect DC characters, say, Fox could very well think, “hey, Fantastic Four is pretty sci-fi too, do we REALLY want to reboot this thing? Our X-Men prequel/reboot didn´t do that great either”. A Silver Surfer movie? In your dreams.
Studios less willing to spend – GL is a pretty expensive movie. A flop may get studios a little scared to spend the movie needed for really big things, like, the Avengers movie – don´t kid yourselves, studios can cut down a budget while the movie is in production. It doesn´t take much to scare Marvel about spending anyway…
And it´s bad simply cuz there aren´t those many characters with great potential left. Almost all the big guns either have established franchises or are even being rebooted. The failure of such a promising franchise could begin to spell the end of the golden age of comic book/superhero movies.
About The Author:
Journalist, advertiser, comic book writer, novelist, currently writing Sesinho, Brazil´s most popular educational comic book, distributed for free all over the country, over one million copies a month.