Movie Monday: DC, Green Lantern Don’t Shine Brightly
June 20th, 2011
Despite a bright setup, this movie had a dim showing
This summer’s box office trend continues to favor sci-fi and comic books, and this weekend was no exception. The highly-touted movie “Green Lantern” hit #1 in the box office with a $52.6 million winfall, followed by the Steven Speilberg flick “Super 8″ at $21.2 million. Each of these movies is expected to have a huge impact on this season’s sci-fi heavy big screen lineup, given the huge operating budgets.
For “Green Lantern” though, the opening weekend fixtures were less than ideal. The movie was heavily criticized for its lackluster writing and special effects, arguably the two most important elements for a comic book turned movie. The movie’s opening figures were a far cry from the $200 million production cost, and is currently the lowest-grossing movie of the genre for its first weekend.
For DC Comics, the makers of the “Green Lantern” comic franchise, this is a major disappointment, especially since the industry giant is in the process of retooling its famed superheroes to fit the modern audience, and was no doubt hoping “Green Lantern” would help reintroduce DC to a new demographic of comic book fans. Despite being king of the box office this past weekend, it is going to be difficult for the movie to turn a profit given its massive budget and its poor showing among movie critics, especially with Marvel churning out movies like “X-Men First Class”, and “Thor” that have both popular and critical appeal, demonstrating that DC still has work to do if it wants to pose a serious challenge to Marvel’s superhero diversity and big-screen successes.
Posted by:
