One of four franchise superhero films to hit theaters this summer, Green Lantern was the only film in the group that did not meet box office expectations, even with Casino Royale director Martin Campbell and lead actor Ryan Reynolds on board. The film has a lot of ground to cover in DVD and Blu-Ray sales if the franchise expects to make up for budget money lost during its theatrical release. With that in mind, I’d expect Warner Bros. to throw in a hell of a lot of special features with the Green Lantern home release to make certain fans will be impressed and spend the extra money. That, or create an extraordinarily cheap DVD release, hoping for impulse purchases.
The company has done neither. The Green Lantern release will hit 3D Blu-Ray, Blu-Ray, and DVD on October 14th. The whole thing plays a high-cost, low-quality tune. You’ll get the most for your money with the more-reasonable-for-what-you-get $43.99 3D Blu-Ray, but even then, the special features only equate to a couple of featurettes, additional scenes, an extended cut of the film, and a Green Lantern: The Animated Series preview. You know its desperate when the only nice thing the press release has to say about its features is the extended cut will feature “new” scenes. Beyond all this, the DVD will run at an expensive $31.98 and will come with nothing but two previews of upcoming D.C. project features.
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has generally been all over the place with its bonus footage, but maybe that’s half the problem. I guess the tactical plan is just to toss the release out into the universe as a Hail Mary play, but that doesn’t really makes sense, especially considering Warner Bros. already has plans for a darker, grittier sequel to its origin story. Whether or not the sequel is better, Warner Bros. is not going to gain any new fans from this release, and gaining new fans is exactly what this franchise needs.
