Green Lantern=GotG

Having seen Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy at the weekend I was struck by the idea that it had a lot in common with DC's Green Lantern movie from 2001. Both were showcases for lesser known comic book characters, both were intended to be a humorous counterpoint to superhero movies that took themselves far more seriously, both would expand their cinematic universes in a 'cosmic' direction, and both were hoped to lay the ground work for future sequels. That though is where the similarities end.

GotG sits at 92% on Rotten tomatoes with critics and 96% audience rating. It set a box office record for an August release and had a sequel announced days before it hit theatres.

GL on the other hand has a 26% and 46% rating respectively, barely managed to take more money in the US in it's entire run than GotG took in one weekend and any sequel plans died a death.

Now what I'm wondering is not how could GL have done as well as GotG but what if GL had been that sort of success? what influence would that have had on DC/WB's movie plans? Would they have lightened the tone of Man of Steel? Would they have taken the risk on a Wonder Woman movie? Would they just have greenlit a GL sequel and ploughed on regardless?

well one of the things thats hard is that it'd have to be a very different movie, not knowing how it is different makes it hard to say what happens next

we'd likely be seeing the Green Lantern 2 (or whatever) this year, 3 years after its first one, Man of Steel (or whatever) I was going to say it'd be more cosmic and spacey but then I forced myself to really remember that pile of dog crap and remembered how Spacey it was so idk, if GL is more a lighthearted (like GotG) and fun like a space adventure movie should be, maybe MoS is less of a grim dark slog, not campy mind, just not darker then Batman's armpit

black angel said:

well one of the things thats hard is that it'd have to be a very different movie, not knowing how it is different makes it hard to say what happens next

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Well as I say I don't want to to get deep into how to fix GL so basically I would assume the same movie but with Hal Jordan coming across as being likeable in the same way Peter Quill does in GotG rather than immensely irritating and tweaking the other performances accordingly, oh and tidying up the plot wouldn't hurt either.

we'd likely be seeing the Green Lantern 2 (or whatever) this year, 3 years after its first one, Man of Steel (or whatever) I was going to say it'd be more cosmic and spacey but then I forced myself to really remember that pile of dog crap and remembered how Spacey it was so idk, if GL is more a lighthearted (like GotG) and fun like a space adventure movie should be, maybe MoS is less of a grim dark slog, not campy mind, just not darker then Batman's armpit

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I think with MoS DC had concluded that the dark Nolan Batman movies were the only template that would work and so they tried to cram Superman into it without any great success

1. Cast Nathan "Mal Reynolds" Fillon as Hal instead of Ryan "Van Wilder" Reynolds, or else used John Stewart or Guy Gardner. If only this were twenty years ago; I would have recommended Jeff Foxworthy, Billy Bob Thornton, or Joe Bob Briggs.

2. Make the training part of the movie last longer, and have Sinestro do the training. When Hal returns to Earth, we see Sinestro come with him. Sinestro's betrayal and transformation into the bearer of the Yellow Light of Fear should be a punch in the gut.

3. Use someone other than Hector Hammond or Parallax as the villain(s). I would have chosen Myrwhidden, personally.

4: Set Carol Farris up to one day become the Star Sapphire Champion, say, by giving her some daddy issues to work on.

5: Most importantly, don't recycle the jokes from the Jack Black vehicle script.

Frankly, Green Lantern as a movie franchise would have worked much better if there was a less forced humor, and a lot more philosophy. If I wanted DC movie that combined humor with cosmic scale, I would have chosen Booster Gold, Ambush Bug and the Amber Butane Corps, Legion of Superheroes, or maybe even Lobo!

Kalvan said:

Frankly, Green Lantern as a movie franchise would have worked much better if there was a less forced humor, and a lot more philosophy. If I wanted DC movie that combined humor with cosmic scale, I would have chosen Booster Gold, Ambush Bug and the Amber Butane Corps, Legion of Superheroes, or maybe even Lobo!

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Hal is not really the right one for a humor GL, idk if any of them are good for that, you can do light hearted and have jokes with out it being a comedy, something DC-WB didn't seem to get, maybe if they set up a DC Studio of Comic fans and writers and movie people, like Marvel Studio in Disney this would work better

any ways, GL doing well might lead to no Man of Steel at lest not at the same time, its clear to me at lest that GL was meant to be DC's Iron Man, Iron Man before his movie was basically totally unknown to the public, GL is at lest vaguely known by non-comic readers, the man on the street likely could put a name to the symbol if you wore a T-shirt, so more likely The Flash gets a movie, again a hero who's name and basic powers would be known by most people, then maybe Green Arrow, or Wonder Woman as the lead up to JLA, WB has had a few struggling half steps toward the JLA movie, if any one of them worked we'd see next steps a few workable steps we might see the whole thing go forward, there were 4 years and 5 movies between the start of MCU and the Avengers, the JLA is a bigger team, even if you keep it down to the basics, you NEED Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Aquaman, and I'd say the Martian Manhunter, but knowing WB they'd ditch the last two as "uncool" rather then trying to make them cool

For contractual reasons, there had to be a Superman movie in or close to 2013 if I remember correctly. However, Warner Brothers spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to reboot Superman after the perceived failure of Superman Returns, and I think that with a successful Green Lantern film, the creative process behind what became Man of Steel would be different if for no other reason than the creative team behind Green Lantern may have their input in the Superman reboot. While there will be a Superman film, the plot, tone, and over all direction could be butterflied into something completely different. The alternate film could have the same name, as "Man of Steel" had been cycling around Warner Brothers for a Superman film since at least the days of the Flyby project if I remember correctly.

Glass Onion said:

For contractual reasons, there had to be a Superman movie in or close to 2013 if I remember correctly. However, Warner Brothers spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to reboot Superman after the perceived failure of Superman Returns, and I think that with a successful Green Lantern film, the creative process behind what became Man of Steel would be different if for no other reason than the creative team behind Green Lantern may have their input in the Superman reboot. While there will be a Superman film, the plot, tone, and over all direction could be butterflied into something completely different. The alternate film could have the same name, as "Man of Steel" had been cycling around Warner Brothers for a Superman film since at least the days of the Flyby project if I remember correctly.

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Yeah I do believe that after GL failed DC/WB went with the only template that they knew succeeded, however bad a fit it was for Superman.

The last thing that movie needed was more daddy issues.

Carol Ferris should have been a stronger character, and Hal's boss.

Garrison said:

Yeah I do believe that after GL failed DC/WB went with the only template that they knew succeeded, however bad a fit it was for Superman.

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I have no idea what a uncontroversial successful Superman Reboot would look like. Clearly, you can't just copy the 1970's film, because that's what Singer tried and the approach didn't work. I haven't seen Man of the Steel, but a darker and edgier approach reportedly wasn't entirely successful either. But if the Green Lantern creative team has any ideas, I'm sure that Warner Brothers will be all ears, as they were pretty desperate for a Superman film at that point. If they get to Warner Brothers before Nolan and Goyer have their conversation, or if that conversation doesn't happen, then there idea could end up as a film.

Its odd, I liked Green Lantern, maybe because to me it was more science fiction than superhero and I understood the humour. I also sometimes like understated performances.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf