As early as 2008 when Marvel launched "Iron Man" to open the movie universe, DC had already sensed Marvel's ambitions.
Therefore, although the box office reputation of "The Dark Knight" at the time was both big hits, DC was not dazzled by a temporary victory. In order to fight the Marvel universe, Warner at that time shot a movie as a pioneer in the DC universe.
This movie is the "Green Lantern" we will talk about today .
Hard conditions are almost perfect
For this movie that opened the DC universe, Warner is actually very caring.
First of all, Martin Campbell , the director of "007: Golden Eye" and "007: Casino Royale" came to direct, and in terms of production cost, he gave the highest-level Hollywood production budget of 200 million US dollars .
As for this film, Green Lantern is the protagonist, which is also the result of careful consideration.
First of all, the hero who can afford to open the DC universe must be a high-status first-line hero , so second-line heroes such as Green Arrow and Supergirl are not considered.
Secondly, most of the DC's first-line heroes at the time were not suitable for launching movies.
Superman, the movie failed in 2006, the bad influence has not yet been eliminated, and it is in the snow.
Batman, Nolan's Batman movie was being filmed at the time, and it is impossible to produce another movie with a different worldview.
Wonder Woman, the female superhero was a dangerous area at the time, and the black widow who was so hot at the time did not dare to launch it.
Aquaman, the popularity was very, very low at that time.
Gang Bone was just a third-line hero at the time, and he had not been righted to the first line.
Martian Hunter, the character ability is too BUG, not suitable for debut when the movie universe was just established.
Shazam, after transforming, his abilities and appearance are highly overlapped with Superman.
After much deliberation, the only two suitable for launching movies at the time were The Flash and Green Lantern . At that time, because of the huge sales of Lantern comics, the popularity of Green Lantern was slightly higher than that of Flash, so Warner finally chose Green Lantern as the DC Universe. The pioneering work is a very appropriate move.
The Green Lantern, because most of the characters' stories belong to the cosmic rays, so he has a huge advantage in constructing the DC universe worldview that other heroes can't compare.
As for the leading role, Ryan Reynolds, who was quite popular at the time, was hired as the leading actor.
The characters are popular and there are many stories and they are suitable for building a world view. The director has a resume of excellent works, and the actors have both topicality and popularity. The budget cost is the highest level in Hollywood.
It can be seen that this "Green Lantern" has almost all the hard conditions for success. Even if there is no big hit, it is not difficult to get a satisfactory result.
However, what is surprising is that after the release of "Green Lantern", it encountered Waterloo . Not only was the word of mouth very bad, with its US$200 million investment, the final global box office was only 200 million. With publicity costs and share, this film can be regarded as one of the worst losses for Warner Bros. in the past 10 years.
As mentioned above, the hard conditions of "Green Lantern" are very good, so the reason for the failure of this film is still to be found in the film itself.
Sufficient and insufficient budget
The $200 million budget was arguably the highest level of investment at the time.
However, for the movie "Green Lantern", it seems to be far from enough.
Ask if there are children's shoes, they are all at the highest level, why is it not enough? Can't we mention the budget of 340 million, 400 million and 500 million, right?
In fact, the reason why US$200 million is not enough to burn "Green Lantern" is because director Martin is not good at "spending money on the edge".
Martin's two "007" movies are both action movies, and the production cost is relatively low. This is the first time he has encountered this level of production, and it is also the first time he has come into contact with comic movies.
In other words, Martin has no experience in shooting comic films.
Therefore, in the "Green Lantern", you can see a very interesting thing, that is , all the uniforms of the Green Lantern in the film are all fluid suits made by CG.
What does this mean? The representative is burning money even if the Green Lantern stands there and does nothing, or chats a few words.
The original background of "Green Lantern" is the universe. The scene itself requires a lot of special effects rendering, plus the battle scene, the overall cost is very high. In this case, the operation of this fluid battle suit directly makes even the writing scene It's burning money, and it's no wonder that the $200 million budget is not enough.
The most terrible thing is that the audience generally did not have much praise for this fluid suit.
Because the budget was burned too hard, there was no money to make action dramas in the end , so there was basically no battle to watch in the whole movie of "Green Lantern".
Secondly, the design of the action scene of the hero of Green Lantern is very difficult, because his super power is to realize the imagination.
In other words, it is a brain hole. For such a hero, when designing an action scene, a lot of thought must be spent on how the realized energy body can make the audience shine and get rid of traditional melee routines.
As mentioned in the previous contest, action scenes are one of the key elements that determine the success of superhero movies. The difficulty of designing itself and the budget burned are similar, making the martial arts of "Green Lantern" quite poor.
Imagination? Basically I can't see it, either it's realizing a cold weapon to fight hand-to-hand, or it's realizing a big fist directly.
At the same time, because the budget is not enough, the movie will also see the Green Lantern being hit and smashed casually, lying on the ground and panting for a long time to drag time.
It can only be said that this kind of martial arts is really unsatisfactory.
The story is a mess
The story of "Green Lantern" itself is actually a very traditional pattern .
It is the protagonist who accidentally gained superpowers, and then was abused by the villain at first, and finally awakened to defeat the villain and save the world.
However, the pattern is not a problem. After all, as a commercial film, the audience's requirements for the plot are not high, as long as there is no obvious embarrassment.
However, the story setting of "Green Lantern" is really making people play too.
For example, the villain is set to be a super BOSS parallax monster. You must know that the parallax monster is the embodiment of the fear of the whole universe .
Then the protagonist, Hal Jordan, went alone to fight the parallax monster that descended on the earth, and then led the parallax monster to the sun with his own strong will to destroy it...
In the actual plot, Hal had just become the Green Lantern for a few days, and he didn't even know how to use the ring to his fullest ability, nor did he go through any training.
As the embodiment of the fear of the entire universe, it is even more embarrassing to be burned to death by the sun.
The sun is just an ordinary yellow star. There are thousands of yellow stars in the universe. This cosmic BOSS is burned to death by the sun, just like Superman being stabbed to death by an ordinary knife.
If you compare Marvel with it, it would be equivalent to let Thanos appear on the stage in "Reunion 1", and then Iron Man in the initial armor and Thor, who is not awakened with a hammer, chanted a slogan, rushed to grab an ordinary kitchen knife and directly Killed Thanos...
Embarrassing, very embarrassing.
Without any depiction of growth, in the face of a super BOSS, he relied on shouting a few slogans and MAX immediately defeated him forcibly. This is simply not a routine for fighting monsters and leveling. It is normal for the audience to criticize this.
Without any foreshadowing of the worldview
As a work that opened up the movie universe, "Green Lantern" should spend a little more thought on the construction of the worldview framework.
However, in fact, there is hardly any relevant foreshadowing and foreshadowing in the whole movie.
Compare with "Superman: Man of Steel" two years later, Batman's satellite and Lex Luthor's gasoline car appear directly in the film. These are all hidden lines to prove the existence of other superheroes in the world view.
With the positioning of Green Lantern itself, it is too easy to build such a framework.
For example, the Green Lantern Corps is responsible for maintaining the law and order of the universe, while Superman and Martian Hunters are aliens. It is not a problem to make Krypton and Mars appear as Easter eggs, and there will be no feeling of violation and force.
For example, in the original work, there is a deep connection with the Green Lantern Corps. The Seven Lamps Legion and the Black and White Lamps do not exist in the movie like air. Look at the 2018 "Sea King" directly to move the Seven Kingdoms under the sea. This is the construction of the world view. difference.
As a pioneer in opening the movie universe, but even the worldview framework has not been established, it can be said that "Green Lantern" has really failed in this regard.
In view of the double failure of "Green Lantern" at the box office, which caused a very bad impact, in the end Warner could only choose to cut the sequel, and the opening plan of the DC Universe was put on hold.
And the character of Green Lantern has since entered the list of Snow Stores, and has not been able to appear on the screen until today.
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