From Box Office to Screen, Just How Bad Are Things For Green Lantern?
Of all the 2011 summer blockbusters once thought too big to fail, Green Lantern probably sat upon the least stable foundation going into opening weekend. Featuring a mid-eschelon comics hero played by box-office cipher Ryan Reynolds, the CGI and marketing budgets soared even as buzz maintained below that of fellow comic-book/graphic novel adaptations Thor, X-Men: First Class, and the forthcoming Cowboys and Aliens and Captain America -- to say nothing of the lingering word-of-mouth around Super 8 or the global hype accompanying next week's Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Then came the reviews, and then came the fizzle -- not a failure outright, but with an estimated $350 million (or more) tied up in the franchise hopeful, we all join Warner Bros. this morning in asking, "What's next?"
That is a great question, and one for which observers will wait to see crucial week-two returns before writing Lantern off entirely. But a $52.6 million opening -- nearly $6 million below even the studio's own conservative projections -- portends a domestic tally capping out around $200 million. Foreign returns so far aren't encouraging, either: In limited territories, Lantern drew $17 million, undershooting Thor's opening weekend by half in markets including the UK and Russia. (Lantern will continue its international rollout throughout the summer.) These numbers are inflated thanks to 3-D, a dying fad that may well have been driven out of theaters by dissatisfied viewers and/or exhibitors by the time another mega-expensive sequel makes it to multiplexes. Against the examples of Batman and Iron Man, this is not the stuff superhero franchises are made of.
Additionally, to the extent he has a point at all, New Yorker critic David Denby today levels an intriguing charge against Green Lantern and other purveyors of the "digital" and "CGI" scourge:
One reason that C.G.I. has become so widespread is that it makes the fantastic available not just to the artists but to the unimaginative and the graceless as well. Any plot difficulty can be resolved by turning a man into a beast, or a beast into a man, or by having a character vanish altogether, or by hurling someone across a room and smashing him against a wall without his suffering more than an itty-bitty bruise. [...] Movies based on that kind of imagery may be sensational as design, but they aren't likely to fill us with the empathy, dread, and joy inspired by fictions about people making their way through a world where walls are solid, gravity is unrelenting, and matter is indissoluble. Storytelling thrives on limits, inhibitions, social conventions, a world of anticipations and outcomes. Can you have a story that means anything halfway serious without gravity's pull and the threat of mortality?
So, fuddy-duddyness and the very real symptoms of CGI fatigue aside, what if what we're really tired of is the battering, clattering unreality of it all -- that even our escapist moviegoing quests are entitled to something a little more practical? It can still be absurd (the Hangover films, Bridesmaids) or utterly revisionist (Inglorious Basterds, Super 8), but at least it owes something to a relatable world that exists outside the theater doors. What if Green Lantern is the tipping point of taste, a firehose blast of extraplanetary alien dealings that boasts neither the photorealism of Avatar nor the character firmament of Iron Man, and thus crosses the threshold into irrelevance? What if viewers, in their apathy, are saying, "We'll take your garbage, Hollywood, but we won't pick up your shit"?
In any case it's probably too late for Green Lantern to rebound, though never count out the propensity of studio bosses to throw good money after bad -- just less of it, and maybe with more investment in that little thing called a script. We'll see. But how do things look from where you stand?
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Gotta say, I'm one of the first people to bitch about poorly done CG or over-use of it. CG is a tool to be used sparingly (unless it's not - see Avatar or Pixar films), but look at that picture at the top of the article... The only thing NOT created by CG artists is Reynolds' head. I mean, seriously, I know the suit is supposed to be organic and all, but did they have to create even his suit in a computer?
I was never big on seeing this film though I really like the cast. Reynolds, Lively, Mark Strong... all really good, but when it's 40 minutes of a CG creation fighting a CG creation, I couldn't care less. It's like a game that I can't actually play, and frankly, that's just boring.
I loved Green Lantern, and I'm a 50 y.o former Playstation producer and big movie buff. Spending time appreciating the film for its stunning artistry in CGI (no, web fools, not 'Common Gateway Interface'!) does not take away from the film at all. It's very entertaining, very idealistic and philosophically cosmic, Why so many nerds are dissing it really tells me more about them than the producers, who I think made a GREAT superhero film. Take that, Fatman!
My son and I went into this movie with low expectations thanks to all the negative responses (like above) by the press towards this film. We both came out surprised and impressed and will likely see it again. I'm one of the few that knows the backstory to this character and I thought they stayed true to the source. Now trying to get the mass public who don't know anything about him into see this movie has proven difficult. Their marketing campaign for this film is ultimately what's going to doom them. You talk to people who haven't seen it and their understanding is that it's all about outer space monsters. There is that element because it is Green Lantern and that just comes with the story, but it's mainly about a man dealing with his fears and shortcomings to become a better person. As far as the CGI element, you have to have some degree of imagination. To see some of these characters that have been around forever fleshed out on screen was incredible. Personally, I'll take the CGI over a guy in a bad rubber mask (last century) any day.
It's just how our society workds today. If someone is dead set against something they don't understand, they can put the word out that it's terrible and the majority will believe them without ever checking into it for themselves. Everyone has their own opinion and to me that's the one that should count. Why we need to pay someone large amouts of money to print their opinion and take that at face value is beyond me. See this movie and decide for yourself.
"Why so many nerds are dissing it really tells me more about them than the producers...". It tells you the nerds aren't impressed and that the producers/directors need to listen to their target audience.
$200 million domestic? WB would *kill* for that number at this point. With its poor critical response and bad word of mouth, it will be lucky to clear $150 mil. Oh, and it sucks. Biiiiiiiig time!
Looks like this tentpole couldn't even support a wigwam.
I think it's the matrix effect. After that came out, you can't just have two ordinary people fighting any more.
Yeah, and I think already problematic Green Lantern/Green Hornet confusion is going to be even more of an issue outside the U.S. We'll see.
What's with the "photorealism" of Avatar? The forest battlescenes looked very real, but there was PLENTY in that movie that screamed CGI, like whenever the Smurfs moved too quickly, the floating planet scenes, and ANY scene at night. I thought Alice in Wonderland looked far more realistic and everything in that was CGI too.
That said, why is it CGI is almost always used to dazzle us? When you're trying to dazzle us with your computers, you're taking us completely out of the story.
It's an ok movie. As I said on Friday, it's decent if you like comic book movies, but it isn't good enough to have appeal to non comic book fans. The problem isn't the amount of money GL made, $52 million would be considered to be a very good opening for most studio movies, the problem is that the idiots at WB thought that it would be a good idea to spend $300 million+ making and marketing a movie based on a third tier (GL is not mid echelon, he's lower echelon) comic book character.
It's not that GL didn't appeal to it's target audience, the problem is that it's target audience was never large enough to justify that kind of budget. The general public had no idea who Green Lantern was prior to this year, and casual comic fans were indifferent to him. Only hard core comic geeks read GL, and there are not enough of those to lead to a profit with a budget of that size.
There probably won't be a Green Lantern II, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a $350 million (combined budget) version on The Flash hitting screens in 2013. I say $350 million combined because the lesson WB will take from this is that they didn't spend ENOUGH money putting GL out.
BTW, I gather that Movieline allows the same user name to be used by more than one person? This is a different Brian than the one who posted above.
+1. Best CGI in the last five years was in "The Social Network".
I think "CGI fatigue" sums a lot of it up fairly well. Watching the Transformers 3 trailer I was bored. Massive scenes of destruction and noise have become boring. There's no sense of danger when it's all an endless stream of ones and zeros. The human brain just goes "Faaaaaake."
But I'm not just going to blame CGI excess; far less lazy scripts would go some way to helping these movies across the line and win audiences.
Saw the film Saturday afternoon. Used Fandango and arrived early. For what it is, it is a good movie. It was Not "Toy Story 3", but it was as good as X-Men. Reynolds plays the part over the top a little, but my family and friends enjoyed the afternoon out.
Now we should talk about the price of tickets. It is crazy to pay $9.25 per seat.
The problem isn't really "CGI," which is such a broad term that it's almost meaningless these days. People are complaining about noticing a lot of fake environments and 3D animation. Every new movie, be it a comedy, a drama, or a blockbuster, has vfx, usually including some CG elements, they're just "invisible," not noticeable.
The real problem is that some moviemakers nowadays are lazy and have the "fix it in post" attitude instead of actually figuring out how to shoot something properly. Crew's in the shot? VFX. Don't want to build a set? VFX. Stunt would cost more on set? VFX. Reshoots can't be done on location? VFX. That's the lazy attitude that David Denby's talking about. But the problem is not overuse of CG, it's really a matter of rushing to shoot a not-great script, not having enough time and effort to plan things properly and make it work, and then attempting to fix everything later. Hitchcock used plenty of effects, but he was known to plan everything in extreme detail. He would probably marvel at how $300 mill budget films are, in some important aspects, being made like B movies now.
The first and last 3-D movie I've ever seen was 'The Mad Magician' starring Vincent Price...on 8mm...on my bedroom wall, played at home by my father. I just don't buy into all the hype. As for Hollywoods newest practive of 'using' 3-D filmaking to 'distract' us from bad script-writing, weak dialogue, and boring plot-twists...I will agree with the OP, 'Ironman' and 'The Dark Knight' PROVE that you don't need to waste the money on 3D...but my all-time favorites (as far as comic-strip heroes turned movie-legends, nothing will ever beat the Charisma of Christopher-Reeve, the 'Gritty-ness' of Tim-Burton's vision of Batman, or the shockingly DEEP introspection of the REAL every-day lives of superheroe's in 'The Watchmen'. It's not the special effects...it's the WRITING that makes (or breaks) the movie.
Now I want to watch that movie only because many people say it's a bad movie.