Let's start with a primer. I'm not a professional writer (although I'd like to be), and I am not the end-all-be-all when it comes to superheroes (although I do know a lot). That said, I love a good story, and like to think I understand a little as to what constitutes a good one.
So, as my buddies once stated back in May just before Summer really kicked off, "This is THE year of the superhero!" Sadly, that turned out to not be true. Sure, there were some successes, but even those successes were paltry compared to the ones that came before it.
So, as my buddies once stated back in May just before Summer really kicked off, "This is THE year of the superhero!" Sadly, that turned out to not be true. Sure, there were some successes, but even those successes were paltry compared to the ones that came before it.
First, let's look at the numbers. All information was pulled off the site boxofficemojo.com. The numbers pulled are domestic box office returns only, I'm being insular and only looking at us 'Mericans. There were five major comic-based movies this summer.
Movie Name Domestic Total Gross Estimated Production Cost Earnings
Thor 181 Million 150 Million 31 Million
Captain America 174 Million 140 Million 34 Million
X-men First Class 146 Million 160 Million -14 Million
Green Lantern 116 Million 200 Million -84 Million
Cowboys & Aliens 99 Million 163 Million -64 Million
Ouch. Even the two winners of the summer didn't win by that much. Not when you compare it to other superhero movies.
Iron Man 318 Million 140 Million 178 Million
Iron Man 2 312 Million 200 Million 112 Million
X-men 157 Million 75 Million 82 Million
X-men 2 214 Million 110 Million 104 Million
Spider-man 403 Million 139 Million 264 Million
Spider-man 2 373 Million 200 Million 173 Million
Batman Begins 205 Million 150 Million 55 Million
Dark Knight 533 Million 185 Million 348 Million
Now, Dark Knight is probably the exception to the rule (as the massive viral campaign and Heath Ledger helped that one skyrocket...the lack of a viral campaign for the next movie is surprisingly shocking seeing as it did so well the first time..but that's a different blog post), but as you can see these past movies have hit it really big.
So what was the problem this time around? Was it the economy, lack of extra funds for a majority of people equals less people in the theaters? Were the latest batch of movies just that crappy?
Both very good questions, and both can be assessed via data. First, lets look at the critic scores (thanks to metacritic site rottentomatoes.com).
Thor (77%), Captain America (78%), X-men First Class (a whopping 87%), Green Lantern (a distressing 27%), Cowboys & Aliens (45%). For similarity lets also compare the other movies shown. Iron Man (astonishing 94%), Iron Man 2 (74%..must have been something to do with the robotic high-five ending), X-men (82%), X-men 2 (88%), Spider-man (89%), Spider-man 2 (93%), Batman Begins (85%), Dark Knight (94%).
So, if we go by those numbers then it must be obvious why they failed, they weren't as critically/mass-appeal loved as the others. But hold on. X-men First Class got an 87% rating. The highest for this year's batch of superhero movies, yet it was one of the ones that wasn't succesful. The two other higher rated ones also didn't get as much money. Iron Man 2 from last year had a lower rating than Thor and Captain America, yet it made almost 100 million more than those two.
Well, what about audience attendance?
Unfortunately one can't get the actual attendance for each movie, but there is a tally of the total attendance for the summer. It stands at 543 Million tickets sold for the summer. To put into context this is the lowest summer attendance since 1997, which stood at 540 million. Yes, this could definitely be a factor in the low sales for these movies. With worries about the economy rising, and consumers' money dwindling, entertainment is one of the first cuts one makes to stay afloat.
But, that is also slightly disproved by major hits such as the Harry Potter movie, the last Transformers movie(..it's funny when they claim a billion dollar franchise is over), and the Pirates movie, not including Hangover 2 and other major hits have performed exceedingly well. Have superheroes already lost their luster?
God, I hope not. But these are distressing numbers.
More than likely it is the combination of both the economy and reviews/word of mouth which has caused this year's movies to dip in sales. As you can see, the two lowly rated movies recieved little returns, even First Class took a small hit comparitively to Green Lantern and Cowboys & Aliens, which were panned by critics everywhere (Apparently there was not enough pathos in one movie, and not enough nudity in the other).
Next year sees the return of Batman, Spider-man, and the appearance of the Avengers. So hopefully there will be a great turnout for these movies. Only time will tell, though.
Anywho, back to this year's movies. According to metacritic rankings, the movies are in the following order: X-men First Class, Captain America, Thor, Cowboys & Aliens, and finally Green Lantern.
Based entirely on my opinion, the list of the order of best to worst movies for this summer would be: Captain America, X-men First Class, Thor, Green Lantern with Cowboys & Aliens trailing off in the distance somewhere.
Yes, I was one of the millions who skipped watching Cowboys & Aliens. Why? The second it was slated as PG-13 I knew it was a skip. The material it was based off of was very graphic, and the movie should have been as well. So like Jonah Hex of last year, when they dropped it to PG-13 (to grab that elusive teenage audience....heh...), I decided it wasn't for me.
So, technically I should take off Cowboys & Aliens on my personal ranking, and Green Lantern should be dead last. Here's the problem; Green Lantern is not as bad as people make it out to be. Sure, Blake Lively has a problem with acting, and it's hard to believe she is a career pilot, and maybe Ryan Reynolds was miscast in the role. BUT, it had a fairly decent(read: standard) plot that made the mythology easy to understand for the casual audience.
There lies its biggest problem. It was afraid to go deep into the alien stuff, almost as if the director, writer, and producers feared the audience wouldn't understand it all. Essentially it's a slap in the face to everyone; you possibly can't understand all the supposed complexities of the Green Lantern mythology so we aren't even going to bother with it.
Loosely based on the comic book story arc Green Lantern: Secret Origin by Geoff Johns (although IGN would disagree and say it follows it too much), the movie tells the story of irresponsibly [late]twenty-something Hal Jordan, a cocky test pilot and slight man-whore, who is chosen by an intergalactic peace-keeping force called the Green Lanterns when his predecessor is killed by an evil alien. Hijinx ensue as Hal Jordan slowly learns that in order to be a great hero, one must overcome fear (but not be fearless, that leads to other problems). It really is a simple simple story. Almost too simple. In fact, even the comic arc had a problem with this and had to introduce another character, Sinestro, to make it compelling.
Here's the problem. Where the comic arc was amazing because of Sinestro's character arc (and the various mythology reveals), the movie fails because it focuses too much on Hal Jordan. This guy, unfortunately, can be an incredible douche, or in the tame movie version; an irresponsible bore. Yeah. Who'd have thought a character played by Ryan Reynolds would be boring. Even he looks like he's just going through the motions as the movie goes along. It is a shame. Without the inclusion of Sinestro to show how each is the opposite side of the same coin, the audience just can't find anything within the movie to fully enjoy.
Honestly, it looks like there was a Sinestro/Hal Jordan buddy-cop-turned-bad movie within this one. There are even character reveals at the end of the movie that hints towards this, but unfortunately someone high up over at WB (or mabye the director himself) freaked out, and thought that there was no way audiences would want to watch aliens interact for two hours. So in came the human element; Hector Hammond, his father, Amanda Waller, and Carol Ferris.
These parts of the story (save for Amanda Waller, which just seem to be a wasteful cameo that does not explain who she really is) are also in the comic version. The problem here is that they waste too much time and don't let these characters seem human. Hector Hammond is used to show an opposite version of Hal Jordan. He isn't attractive, super smart, and is far from the word cocky. In fact, there are moments in the movie where it shows both characters (interspersed by flashes) interacting to almost similar story advances. This would have been ok, and serviceable if it weren't for the fact they don't spend enough time with Hector, so he becomes just a silly freak-villain instead of a tragic, and interesting, one. To make matters worse, the movie focuses too much on another villain (named Paralax...), who wasn't even in the original comic-arc that this movie was based on. To add insult to injury *massive spoiler alert here, but seeing as how the movie bombed I doubt anyone will care* he gets killed at the end, thus ruining any chance of him getting properly used unless there's a reboot.
Regardless, the story is still serviceable. It isn't a train wreck, and I'd reccomend watching this because there is a glimmer of a great story underneath it. At the very least check out the comic it was based on, it is assuredly a great read.
Now, there have been many a WB exec that has claimed they are going forward with a sequel. Sorry folks, there won't be one. (They are saying it to save face and not feel so bad for wasting 200 million dollars). Will there be a reboot of the series? More than likely. Although here's my (unsolicited) opinion for what they should do for another movie.
1. Don't make it a major reboot, go the route of Incredible Hulk (where it starts the movie as if he's been the Hulk for years and the intro credits showed the origin). Heck, they should go ahead and keep Ryan Reynolds, or if they go with a different actor he should be one of the other human GL's.
Movie Name Domestic Total Gross Estimated Production Cost Earnings
Thor 181 Million 150 Million 31 Million
Captain America 174 Million 140 Million 34 Million
X-men First Class 146 Million 160 Million -14 Million
Green Lantern 116 Million 200 Million -84 Million
Cowboys & Aliens 99 Million 163 Million -64 Million
Ouch. Even the two winners of the summer didn't win by that much. Not when you compare it to other superhero movies.
Iron Man 318 Million 140 Million 178 Million
Iron Man 2 312 Million 200 Million 112 Million
X-men 157 Million 75 Million 82 Million
X-men 2 214 Million 110 Million 104 Million
Spider-man 403 Million 139 Million 264 Million
Spider-man 2 373 Million 200 Million 173 Million
Batman Begins 205 Million 150 Million 55 Million
Dark Knight 533 Million 185 Million 348 Million
Now, Dark Knight is probably the exception to the rule (as the massive viral campaign and Heath Ledger helped that one skyrocket...the lack of a viral campaign for the next movie is surprisingly shocking seeing as it did so well the first time..but that's a different blog post), but as you can see these past movies have hit it really big.
So what was the problem this time around? Was it the economy, lack of extra funds for a majority of people equals less people in the theaters? Were the latest batch of movies just that crappy?
Both very good questions, and both can be assessed via data. First, lets look at the critic scores (thanks to metacritic site rottentomatoes.com).
Thor (77%), Captain America (78%), X-men First Class (a whopping 87%), Green Lantern (a distressing 27%), Cowboys & Aliens (45%). For similarity lets also compare the other movies shown. Iron Man (astonishing 94%), Iron Man 2 (74%..must have been something to do with the robotic high-five ending), X-men (82%), X-men 2 (88%), Spider-man (89%), Spider-man 2 (93%), Batman Begins (85%), Dark Knight (94%).
So, if we go by those numbers then it must be obvious why they failed, they weren't as critically/mass-appeal loved as the others. But hold on. X-men First Class got an 87% rating. The highest for this year's batch of superhero movies, yet it was one of the ones that wasn't succesful. The two other higher rated ones also didn't get as much money. Iron Man 2 from last year had a lower rating than Thor and Captain America, yet it made almost 100 million more than those two.
Well, what about audience attendance?
Unfortunately one can't get the actual attendance for each movie, but there is a tally of the total attendance for the summer. It stands at 543 Million tickets sold for the summer. To put into context this is the lowest summer attendance since 1997, which stood at 540 million. Yes, this could definitely be a factor in the low sales for these movies. With worries about the economy rising, and consumers' money dwindling, entertainment is one of the first cuts one makes to stay afloat.
But, that is also slightly disproved by major hits such as the Harry Potter movie, the last Transformers movie(..it's funny when they claim a billion dollar franchise is over), and the Pirates movie, not including Hangover 2 and other major hits have performed exceedingly well. Have superheroes already lost their luster?
God, I hope not. But these are distressing numbers.
More than likely it is the combination of both the economy and reviews/word of mouth which has caused this year's movies to dip in sales. As you can see, the two lowly rated movies recieved little returns, even First Class took a small hit comparitively to Green Lantern and Cowboys & Aliens, which were panned by critics everywhere (Apparently there was not enough pathos in one movie, and not enough nudity in the other).
Next year sees the return of Batman, Spider-man, and the appearance of the Avengers. So hopefully there will be a great turnout for these movies. Only time will tell, though.
Anywho, back to this year's movies. According to metacritic rankings, the movies are in the following order: X-men First Class, Captain America, Thor, Cowboys & Aliens, and finally Green Lantern.
Based entirely on my opinion, the list of the order of best to worst movies for this summer would be: Captain America, X-men First Class, Thor, Green Lantern with Cowboys & Aliens trailing off in the distance somewhere.
Yes, I was one of the millions who skipped watching Cowboys & Aliens. Why? The second it was slated as PG-13 I knew it was a skip. The material it was based off of was very graphic, and the movie should have been as well. So like Jonah Hex of last year, when they dropped it to PG-13 (to grab that elusive teenage audience....heh...), I decided it wasn't for me.
So, technically I should take off Cowboys & Aliens on my personal ranking, and Green Lantern should be dead last. Here's the problem; Green Lantern is not as bad as people make it out to be. Sure, Blake Lively has a problem with acting, and it's hard to believe she is a career pilot, and maybe Ryan Reynolds was miscast in the role. BUT, it had a fairly decent(read: standard) plot that made the mythology easy to understand for the casual audience.
There lies its biggest problem. It was afraid to go deep into the alien stuff, almost as if the director, writer, and producers feared the audience wouldn't understand it all. Essentially it's a slap in the face to everyone; you possibly can't understand all the supposed complexities of the Green Lantern mythology so we aren't even going to bother with it.
Loosely based on the comic book story arc Green Lantern: Secret Origin by Geoff Johns (although IGN would disagree and say it follows it too much), the movie tells the story of irresponsibly [late]twenty-something Hal Jordan, a cocky test pilot and slight man-whore, who is chosen by an intergalactic peace-keeping force called the Green Lanterns when his predecessor is killed by an evil alien. Hijinx ensue as Hal Jordan slowly learns that in order to be a great hero, one must overcome fear (but not be fearless, that leads to other problems). It really is a simple simple story. Almost too simple. In fact, even the comic arc had a problem with this and had to introduce another character, Sinestro, to make it compelling.
Here's the problem. Where the comic arc was amazing because of Sinestro's character arc (and the various mythology reveals), the movie fails because it focuses too much on Hal Jordan. This guy, unfortunately, can be an incredible douche, or in the tame movie version; an irresponsible bore. Yeah. Who'd have thought a character played by Ryan Reynolds would be boring. Even he looks like he's just going through the motions as the movie goes along. It is a shame. Without the inclusion of Sinestro to show how each is the opposite side of the same coin, the audience just can't find anything within the movie to fully enjoy.
Honestly, it looks like there was a Sinestro/Hal Jordan buddy-cop-turned-bad movie within this one. There are even character reveals at the end of the movie that hints towards this, but unfortunately someone high up over at WB (or mabye the director himself) freaked out, and thought that there was no way audiences would want to watch aliens interact for two hours. So in came the human element; Hector Hammond, his father, Amanda Waller, and Carol Ferris.
These parts of the story (save for Amanda Waller, which just seem to be a wasteful cameo that does not explain who she really is) are also in the comic version. The problem here is that they waste too much time and don't let these characters seem human. Hector Hammond is used to show an opposite version of Hal Jordan. He isn't attractive, super smart, and is far from the word cocky. In fact, there are moments in the movie where it shows both characters (interspersed by flashes) interacting to almost similar story advances. This would have been ok, and serviceable if it weren't for the fact they don't spend enough time with Hector, so he becomes just a silly freak-villain instead of a tragic, and interesting, one. To make matters worse, the movie focuses too much on another villain (named Paralax...), who wasn't even in the original comic-arc that this movie was based on. To add insult to injury *massive spoiler alert here, but seeing as how the movie bombed I doubt anyone will care* he gets killed at the end, thus ruining any chance of him getting properly used unless there's a reboot.
Regardless, the story is still serviceable. It isn't a train wreck, and I'd reccomend watching this because there is a glimmer of a great story underneath it. At the very least check out the comic it was based on, it is assuredly a great read.
Now, there have been many a WB exec that has claimed they are going forward with a sequel. Sorry folks, there won't be one. (They are saying it to save face and not feel so bad for wasting 200 million dollars). Will there be a reboot of the series? More than likely. Although here's my (unsolicited) opinion for what they should do for another movie.
1. Don't make it a major reboot, go the route of Incredible Hulk (where it starts the movie as if he's been the Hulk for years and the intro credits showed the origin). Heck, they should go ahead and keep Ryan Reynolds, or if they go with a different actor he should be one of the other human GL's.
2. Focus on it more as a space-opera with cop-like procedural settings. The Green Lantern Corps is essentially a universal police force. Let's see more of that. There should be less of a focus on people on Earth and more of a focus on all the other species the Corps can show off.
3. Utilize Sinestro. *Another spoiler*At the end of the first movie, he grabs a yellow power ring (for easy thought just think of it as the evil Green Lantern ring). To most it seems out of the blue. The entire movie he espouses about how great the Green Lantern Corps is only to just grab this other ring? Well, and this goes back to my statement earlier that there were hints of a great movie within, there were brief hints but they weren't that noticeable and so his change seems jarring. Howbout in the Green Lantern Corps (yes that's what they should title the next one), we have a slow burn towards his absolute transformation to evil. We, as the audience, see him turning but his fellow corpsmen and friends don't until it is too late. Brilliant! *hears the clinking sound of two bottles hitting each other in a toasting fashion*
4. For God's sake, if you are going to release the movie in 3D, film the entire movie in 3D. The post-conversion process is lame, and frankly the audience can tell when it is crappy conversion (just look at the dwindling returns for 3D movies this year). It can be a great technology (look at Avatar, just look at it though, the story is too lame for words), but people are being turned off towards it due to the crappy conversions and the super expensive price for said crappy conversion.
5. Stop killing off the villains. This is fodder for another blog post, but too many superhero movies just kill off the villains at the end, which is a horrible idea. That means they can never be utilized again (save for a reboot, or a lame resurrection). The Dark Knight was great BECAUSE the Joker still lived. Thor was amazing BECAUSE Loki was still around at the end. When you build up these incredible villains, its a shame to not be able to use them again because the hero kills them and/or watches them die. (Here's looking at you, Batman).
And that's that for this go around. When Green Lantern hits on DVD and Blu-ray later in October, I recommend people give it a shot. Rent it/stream it. At the very least, it's worth a $1 from some Redbox thingy to watch it once.
Random Rant of the Day: If you buy Transformers Dark of the Moon this Friday you are wasting your money. No special features in any of the versions being released. Just wait 'til October/November when the real release hits and enjoy all the extras that will come with it. If you fall for buying Friday's release, you are just perpetuating movie companies to release barebones versions first, and then re-releasing the full editions later (thus making you pay twice for the same movie).
