Though it's not exactly a flop, at this point it seems fair to label Green Lantern a disappointment. Intended to kick off Warner Bros. effort to properly mine the DC Universe beyond the headliners of Batman and Superman, Green Lantern cost $300 million to make and market, and so far has pulled in $118 million worldwide for its troubles. In its second weekend in release, this weekend, the movie dropped 65% in its second weekend, a pretty steep drop that's significantly more than the drops seen by Thor and X-Men: First Class. And of course, there's the screechingly bad reviews, which assure that Green Lantern's legacy won't be of making millions and millions of dollars at the box office, but of getting critics to hate Ryan Reynolds, a man with supernatural amounts of charm.
And yet, an investment is an investment, and bad superhero movie usually sells more tickets than a regular old bad movie. So THR reports that Warner Bros. is moving ahead with their plans for a Green Lantern sequel, despite the fact that they're "somewhat disappointed" in the movie's performance. A writer was hired way back in August of last year to write the script, and nobody goes into production on a film this big without an idea of where they'll take the story in a three-film series, so it's unclear exactly what Warner Bros. is doing to renew their commitment to a second film. It's also entirely possible they'll back away from the idea, maybe even based on the performance of Captain America later this year-- if we get to the end of the summer and it's clear moviegoers are getting sick of superheroes, it wouldn't be the worst idea to cut bait and focus on something else.
Even though moviegoers have generally liked the movie more than most critics, Green Lantern seems to be clearly the least loved superhero movie of the summer, and a lot of comics fans who I know feel more than a little disappointed in the screen depiction of a hero they loved. But I know a lot of you guys in the comments were sticking up for the movie when it was released; do you have similar hope that a sequel could be worth watching? I'm hoping they'll set Reynolds free and let him focus on other movies with greater likelihood of success-- and no, I don't even really mean Deadpool-- but you guys could sway me. Anyone want to start the anticipation countdown for Green Lantern 2?
