Green Lantern Flops, What’s Next For DC Movies

Yes I’m sure we have all read the reviews for this movie.  They were not great but still I waited until I had seen it for myself before I would write about it.  The short version of my review is that I spent most of the movie thinking about what part X-Men First Class was on and how easy it would have been for me to walk into that theater.   It wasn’t great.  There were so many plot holes and things that didn’t really add up.  The acting was not spectacular (especially the female lead) and the special effects seemed kind of cartooney.  The biggest problem was the script.  You cant act your way out of a terribly written script.  It took me a day to process the whole thing and then it hit me.  Even with a great script and director, how good could this movie have really been?  That is the real question which leads to a much bigger issue. DC characters.

Super star comic book writer Mark Millar came out with an interesting today where he brought up this very question and expanded on it.  Here is what he had to say:

“Three superhero movies have been out this summer and, bar GL, the others have done fine. Thor cost 150 mill and looks set to settle at around half a billion dollars. X-Men cost about the same and will probably sit around 350. Add in DVD and SPECIAL EDITION DVDs and these are in serious profit. Thor, we must remember, is another semi-unknown character in the mainstream and featured no bankable names. In this context, it’s done INCREDIBLY well and X-Men had the disadvantage of no Wolverine (face it, nay-sayers, he’s the best there is), a period piece and no actors recognised from the previous trilogy. Given these facts, it’s another success as they’re essentially starting from scratch with these prequels. The only genuine flop I think has been Green Lantern, which is a genuine shame and not for lack of love from the people involved. Nobody sets out to make a bad movie, but the non-Batman DC characters just don’t seem to work in modern cinema and TV. I’ve loved these characters as far back as I remember, but whether it’s Wonder Woman or Superman or the Aquaman pilot or Catwoman or Jonah Hex or Birds of Prey or whatever… they just don’t seem to catch on in the modern world. I think it’s hard to compete with the new characters (or even the more recent Marvel characters, created a full generation later). Batman works because he’s more human for the big screen and more empathetic, but I fear The Flash and others would just meet the same fate as Green Lantern. They’re just too outrageous to provide tension in a live action format and I’d love to see them done, Pixar style, as brilliant, theatrical animated movies. Aquaman talking underwater would have us wincing in live action. In a cartoon we wouldn’t even blink. Some stuff just doesn’t suit the format. Imagine instead Paul Dini and Bruce Timm getting 120 million to play with on a big Incredibles-style JLA movie! “

I have to say that I agree completely.  Lets look at Thor.  We have a city of Norse Gods living in another dimension.   Then Green Lantern and its planet of galactic protecters.  It seems that Thor would be reasonably harder to pull of live and would probably be less believable.  This wasn’t the case.  Thor was beautiful.  It had heart, a story that’s easy to understand, believable dialog and most important of all, it had relatable characters.  Green Lantern failed in all of these categories.  I’m not entirely convinced  that its the director’s fault.  Maybe the source material might be the issue.

Something tells me that DC thinks the same thing.  After all, they are re-starting all of their titles from scratch, starting their entire universe all over again in an attempt to make their characters relatable to modern times and new readers.  I hope it works.  Not because I’m a fan off all the other DC (non Batman) characters but because I think healthy competition is good.   It forces the competitors to be more innovative and bring better products into the market.  I wouldn’t want to see Marvel contempt as the only game in town.   So before spending another 400 million on a movie that flops, it might be better to wait until DC revamps their characters and proves that they are received well and then make movies based on this new universe that is more relatable and more realistic.   Just my thoughts.

-m

 

Tags: comic book movie news, dc comic movie news, deadpool movie, green lantern 2, green lantern movie review, mark millar, review, sequel, superman man of steel