While Green Lantern didn't blow the doors off the box office, the Hollywood Reporter is reporting (presumably from Hollywood) that Warner Bros. is going to go forward with turning it into a franchise. Apparently when you spend that much on a film, and lock down abs like those, you don't just walk away after a tough first round. They've got to make up for Harry Potter somehow, and apparently, this is their best option.
Here's hoping they learn from their mistakes in the first go, and turn out something with a little more "wow" factor. I hear that Sinestro goes all yellow.
If you haven't, take a listen to our special edition podcast on Green Lantern.
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Wonder if they reconsider that after the abysmal second week fall.
It’s mentioned in the linked article.
Oh. Great, I guess.
@zombox much like Disney with TRON LEGACY’s poor perfromance, I think Warner’s is loking at the film’s faliures as a disapointment, but only part of the promotional plan behind GL. There’s too much money tied into games, animation etc.
I think Marvel was able to correct things with the 2nd HULK film , why not WB?
also given the film cost 200 mil to make, I think making a sequel can defray costs of the first film
the thing i keep thinking about GL is how much potential it had, especially on Oa. if they stayed away from earth and cheesy sunsets on Carol’s balcony i think a sequel could be amazing
Noooo!!! Now there is no chance for a Deadpool film!!
You can’t make me.
@wordballoon – I agree. The cost of $200 million is partly for developing the software that enables them to create the special effects. So technically, the special effects costs will be less (this is what happened on Lord of the Rings.)
I would think that they need to overall the writing and get someone like Nolan to take completely over.
What they need is to give it to someone and back the fuck off. Moviemaking by corporate committee is not a good idea. This is why the only Marvel Studios movie that wasn’t bland was Iron Man.
This is why X-Men First Class was the best superhero movie of the summer so far (by far).
@wordballoon Incredible Hulk wasn’t greenlit BEFORE the Ang Lee Hulk opened in theaters. That’s the difference.
You know, I was kind of baffled by all of the terrible reviews surrounding this movie after I saw it. Yeah, it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t atrocious, either. It just kind of was. I think they’d have been much better served going with a Manhunters-centric plot, or something other than the Parallax for the first one, but I really see no reason why a sequel with Sinestro as the villain couldn’t be excellent.
Still waiting for a Flash movie, thank you.
@LucasEwait – I’m there with you man. This wasn’t as bad as Jonah Hex or Wanted, but not as great as The Dark Knight. I think the real “meat” of the story was there to make an awesome movie. It seemed to suffer from horrible editing. It seemed well thought out, but hacked together. As well as trying to make it into a certain run-time. If they gave this movie 2.5 hours….it would have metled faces. In my optinion anyway. I feel, as fanboys, we tend to quickly jump on bandwagons of hate for the IP’s we love and have grown up with. It’s kind of odd when you think about it…
@AmirCat the studio doesn’t do the special effects at all, they don’t develop software, it’s the post production houses that do that and typically there can be quite a few of those companies involved in these big budget movies, with each company doing certain shots, and the cost of effects is largely because they have to pay the hourly rate that these companies charge to do the special effects.
I actually haven’t seen it yet (new baby), but the action scenes I saw that weren’t in previews seemd awesome. DC is stupid if it doesn’t re-invest in this franchise given that they can do the movies and change principal actors around depending on which GL’s story they want to tell. One note also: a little more light, less CGI, less grotesque guardians.
here’s to second chances
Just have him go mad and end it.
with Harry Potter finishing up, WB at least can look forward to the nice loss they can post for GL to offset some of that tax liability. Not ideal, but a silver lining.
I’m sure they will push another GL film…they have too much invested, the character is too big. Hopefully they learn from the mistakes.
Why make one disaster when you can make two for twice the price?
@wallythegreenmonster Heh, maybe this is a Producers-style plot.
How about you let Johns get in on the sequel. He has an obvious love for the character and really gets Hal. I think Sinestro as a villian will work with audiences better, well better than whatever Parralax was. I just think it could be better, oh and less Carol. She was dragging it waaaaaaaaaaaay down, Blake Lively’s performance was a D+ at best.
@flakbait –an epic battle against singing cosmic Nazi Lanterns would make all kinds of cash. =p
@ccarney He was very involved with this movie.
@NawidA ANYTHING by committee generally sucks, not just movies. Anything great was done by the vision of one or two people, for the most part.
I don’t know how smart this is as a business decision (I’m not the person anyone would choose to decide how to spend $200 mil.), but it seems like More Sinestro = Better Movie. As much as I didn’t care for the first one, I’ll judge the sequel (assuming it does happen) on its own merits. Let’s hope it’s the movie we all wanted this one to be.
I think this is good news. While I certainly didn’t love the film, it had enough potential to make a really thrilling second installment.
Hal’s origin is weak. That’s not why the film disappointed, but it was a contributing factor. On the all-time list of classic origins, I’d say he ranks pretty low. So now that it’s all out of the way, I think we could really be surprised at how great a sequel could be.
Bummer. I was kind of hoping for the relative failure of GL to help trim the fat off the glut of superhero movies we’re seeing on the market. Guess there’s no stopping this bubble…
Why
On the one hand, considering that this is the first non-Superman/Batman DC film…ever, it really needed to be gangbusters. “Meh” isn’t acceptable. On the other hand, consider that Marvel’s first film after “X-Men” and “Spider-Man” was Lee’s “Hulk,” and look where they are now. A sequel to “Green Lantern” shows confidence, which sometimes a struggling concept needs. We’ll see in a couple years.
More Sinestro i’n the sequel!
They killed my enthusiasm for a Sinestro-centric sequel when they forgot to give him and Hal a relationship worth caring about. It could still be awesome, bit right now I just don’t care.
Not gonna happen. They are just going through the motions now to save face. They’ll drop it when the bad PR has died down.
Man I am glad I was too sick to go see the GL movie last week, I will wait for the DVD after all the comments. As for the sequel, I hope they make a good movie, the DC fans deserve it.
Sweet! I hope this sequel happens!
Between Tranformers and Hangover 2 WB is gonna make a killing this summer….no contest, so letting GL slide a bit behind I think was expected and probably planned.
Besides, when you’re talking about all the CGI models and characters that are all now on file and reusable, it’s not a stretch to imagine they’ll want to use that stockpile of stuff to make another film.
Bring it on, I say.
Plus with the Green Lantern animated seies, that will build up enough fanfare and awareness of the character that a sequel would seem inevitable.
The nation yearns for more Greg Lantern!
@brattyben – isn’t Transformers out of Paramount? Talk about a come-back story…
There’s a fan film about the Flash I just saw on Youtube, it was actually pretty good. It’s called The Flash Heroes Are Born. Check it out. Support the geeks!
Take one story, and one subplot. Do those. WELL!
Shit. I didn’t even see part one yet! Slow down!!
I went into Green Lantern with little expectations and enjoyed it, sure there were things I would’ve done different being a comic book fan and GL being one of my likes but it had a better pace than people were making it out to have, it was just the beginning of his story and I liked that it didn’t focus too much on one thing for too long and wasn’t 3hrs long like all of em lately (even though I loved a few of those too) and don’t really care how long a movie is if i’m enjoying it. It seems GL fans want the movie to be as nerdy as the comix and not a movie, fuck Hector Hammond, his death was exciting and entertaining. Parallax can come back and get someone else besides there are much more interesting directions for this just getting started project. The complaints about the GL Corps being just background teasers? So what, this is Hals story and they’ll get more screen time after we get to know him besides the scenes although short and few with Killowog and Tomar Re were short and sweet i a good way, Abin Sur, Sinestro and Hammond had they’re moments if not some of the best. Sinestro’s presence and intentions are felt,the Guardians looked right and Peter Sarsgard was great, Mark Strong too and I think everyone was too hard on Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, they were fine, your looking for mistakes and too deep into it. Since I can’t seem to leave a short comment I’ll wrap this up with this note: Green Lanterns plot was simple and clear, for him to realize he was worthy and chosen for a reason and that this is just the beginning, expect things to get bigger and better.
Oh and btw, subplots keep doors open for the writers to work with.
They’d be insane to keep the same creative team without making some additons or subtractions. Doesn’t matter who was given the go-ahead for what. They need new blood on the creative side, or they may as well just start shoveling their money directly into the furnace.
I wasn’t happy with the first film, but hope they take note from the negative reaction and work to correct the problems for the sequel.
They should ditch hal and make it about a more interesting GL character. I would go if it was a Guy Gardner movie.
Or G’Nort.
Yeah, i went there.
DITCH GEOFF JOHNS.
I mean seriously… the guy who wrote some of the greatest GL stories in the past few years was okay with mashing a fallen Guardian, Parallax and Hector Hammond into a duo-villain?
What was bad about GL was the villain(s) sucked balls and extremely generic and NONE of the characters outside of Hal and Carol were given time to connect. I’m not saying they had to have an extra hour of explanation, but more relationship between Hal, Carol and Hector… to give more impact on Hector turning bad… more relationshio showing Sinestro coming to respect Hal so that his turn later would be meaningful… and more of a catalyst for Sinestro to betray the guardians would have made the film 1,000X better.
If they do Sinestro in the 2nd film, they better do it right and *build up* to him turning and not this Hobbit-crap ‘I’m addicted to my precious ring so I’m crazy now’ BS.
on the podcast Conor mentioned something about having a difficult time getting friends and family who normally see Superhero movies to want to see this. Thats the same place i’m at. I really like the character but had no desire to drop the $40 it costs for my wife and i to see this in a theatre. All that i saw from the trailers was an OK SFX reel with a thin story. Granted i didn’t see the movie, but the trailers and advertising just reinforced that snap judgement. Combined with the bad reviews, it just seemed like a waste of money. I suspect other people had the same impressions.
Focus on story and don’t let the digital toys dictate everything and you’ll have a hit. The Batman, Spiderman and Iron Man franchises laid out the blueprint for how to do these things…
I think in a recent article they nailed the problem: Green Lantern works on Earth as superhero or on Oa(& vicinity) as space opera, not both at once.
I really enjoyed Green lantern. Which makes the film quite impressive in my opinion. Considering that everything I’d seen of Hal Jordan up to now gave me no reason to change my view of him; as a boring superman knockoff in green tights instead of blue and red. I’d actually consider paying money to read about in him in comic form now. Sequel-wise, though it would be difficult to pull off; I’d love to see movies two and three (or four) each starring a different GL. Kyle Raynor, etc. But with the overall scope of the series following a series of plotlines looping into a cohesive final space opera epic.