Green Lantern

[Khaldun]

Bruce Wayne baseline: father, mother killed. Takes vow to fight crime. Dresses up as a bat when he's a young man to fulfill vow. A bit weird, eh? Has butler named Alfred.

Clark Kent: alien from destroyed planet! Sent in rocket as kid! adopted by nice Midwestern parents. Reporter for Daily Planet. In love with Lois Lane. Has weird uncomfortable homerotic relationship with Jimmy Olsen.

Diana Prince/Wonder Woman: lesbian hottie from island of bondage fetishists who worship Greek gods, sent to man's world to bring peace to us all and get tied up a lot. Or, nobody in particular beyond strong lady in bathing suit.

Flash: fast guy.

Hawkwoman/Hawkman: um, like it sounds?

Martian Manhunter: excuse me?

Green Lantern: dude with ring. Outer space and shit. What, his name is Hal Jordan? That's nice.


Hal Jordan means nothing to anyone really.

To people who've read REALLY recently, maybe he's a concrete character, but much of his recent writing has been by people with a hand in the screenplay. (Just like Iron Man's comic now reads like a retrofitting of the character to Robert Downey Jr.'s characterization.) Hal Jordan for the last forty years? Bland, bland, bland, bland, PUSSYWHIPPED, bland, bland, bland HOLY SHIT TEST PILOT WHO FUCKS TEENAGERS bland bland HAD A TOUGH CHILDHOOD bland bland BANGS HOT CHICKS bland bland KILLED EVERYONE IS A VILLAIN please forget please forget HE IS THE SPECTRE A GHOST FROM GOD NOW bland RESET RESET IT WAS A MONSTER THAT DID IT NOT HAL JORDAN kinda bland but with lots of banging-esque stuff DAD WAS A TEST PILOT SINESTRO WAS HIS FRIEND HERE IS THE MOVIE HE IS DEEP and oh by the way there are tons of differently colored other Lanterns.

You cannot "betray" the character of Hal Jordan. If he's "Ryan Reynolds finds a ring that's all powerful" that's as faithful to the comic as anything else.

[Velorath]

To people who've read REALLY recently, maybe he's a concrete character, but much of his recent writing has been by people with a hand in the screenplay.

That's actually not really true.

[Sir T]

To be fair, when I was in college people were talking enthusiastically about Green Lantern. They described him as an idiot who would be the most powerful guy in the universe... if he had the intelligence to have any imagination. That's pretty much all I know about the character.

[NowhereMan]

I think (Morrison's?) All Star Batman pretty much took that view of the character, dude with the most powerful weapon in the world who used it to make giant green boxing gloves and was weak to yellow things. The movie looks way more like they wanted to follow the Iron Man school with a wise cracking, good times lead who also has awesome powers. I'm not really offended at reworking Hal Jordan (because his character was largely either bland or happily altered to ridiculous extremes by writers, hello Parallax!) but I am disappointed they're trying to make Iron Man 2.0. Mostly because that's already been made and that film works so well precisely because the actor/script/effects were all just write (the first especially). The costume looks bad and could probably have benefited from less CGI and I have doubts about the lead. Just because if he tries to play Robert Downey Jr. he probably isn't going to be as good and the whole film is just going to be a worse version of Iron Man.

It'll probably make money because Iron Man was an awesome film and huge fun and even a worse version of that is probably going to be ok to switch off and sit through but after the disaster that was Superman and the success of the Batman films I would have hoped they'd have tried for some depth. The more I think about it though it's pretty hard to add any depth to "Dude gets given ring by alien, becomes space cop and punches people with giant green boxing glove." Sinestro could provide a nice dramatic villain with some depth but it seems a bit much to throw the whole Green Lantern Corps at people and then have Jordan move on to fighting Intergalactic fascism. The film really needs to happen on earth.

[Draegan]

As long as it's not as bad as the Fantastic Four movies I'm ok with everything.

Then again, I'm not a comic book nerd in any shape or form.

[Khaldun]

To people who've read REALLY recently, maybe he's a concrete character, but much of his recent writing has been by people with a hand in the screenplay.

That's actually not really true.

I think it's clear the screenplay is borrowing from Johns' recent redo of the origin or vice-versa--it's like trying to sort out what Fraction's doing with the Iron Man title, which borrows from the films, but where Marvel is clearly working to synchronize the way the character is developed in every property he appears in (current Avengers cartoon is also very Downey-ized Stark).

[Velorath]

To people who've read REALLY recently, maybe he's a concrete character, but much of his recent writing has been by people with a hand in the screenplay.

That's actually not really true.

I think it's clear the screenplay is borrowing from Johns' recent redo of the origin or vice-versa--it's like trying to sort out what Fraction's doing with the Iron Man title, which borrows from the films, but where Marvel is clearly working to synchronize the way the character is developed in every property he appears in (current Avengers cartoon is also very Downey-ized Stark).

There was some contact between the screenwriters and Johns but not really to the point of collaboration that I think you're implying (Johns doesn't have any credit on the screenplay, and you'd be hard-pressed to point out any indication that Johns is making the comic character Ryan Reynolds-ish or reworking the comic at all to fit in more with the movie).  In fact one of the screenwriters mentioned in an interview that they were finishing up a draft of the screenplay when the Secret Origins arc was coming out, and while they read the arc and found it interesting how Johns tackled some of the same problems they had (why Abin Sur would need to fly a spaceship is the example they gave), it didn't sound like they had taken anything directly from Johns' writing.

[Khaldun]

I really think there has to have been some conversations going at the company level about the character, in part because DC in general is under pressure from above to match Marvel's currently superior planning about developing their intellectual property, which includes some integration of comics treatments and film ones. The film really looks to me visually and otherwise to be an attempt to "Iron Man" the character, and that's not just about a script, but about a gentle reboot of the character's whole presentation. I have a hard time believing that Johns and the scriptwriters just completely coincidentally thought along some of the same lines.

[UnSub]

To possibly provoke a nerd fight, I was disappointed that DC actually brought back Hal Jordan. He was (and this goes back to when I read comics regularly) never that interesting a character.

[Velorath]

I really think there has to have been some conversations going at the company level about the character, in part because DC in general is under pressure from above to match Marvel's currently superior planning about developing their intellectual property, which includes some integration of comics treatments and film ones. The film really looks to me visually and otherwise to be an attempt to "Iron Man" the character, and that's not just about a script, but about a gentle reboot of the character's whole presentation. I have a hard time believing that Johns and the scriptwriters just completely coincidentally thought along some of the same lines.

I think it's a little bit early to talk about Marvel's superior planning.  Most of their previous successes have been due to licensing Spidiey out to Sony, and the X-Men out to Fox.  It remains to be seen if Thor, Captain America, and the Avengers will equal Iron Man's success.  Meanwhile, DC has Nolan's Batman stuff which not only has bigger box office numbers, but improved dramatically from the first movie to the second, while a lot of people found Iron Man 2 to be disappointing.

[UnSub]

Marvel has also reportedly done a poor job of keeping actors on side with negotiations around payment. There is an attitude they've got that they can keep actor salaries down while at the same time keeping them coming back for the films.

Sure, it is difficult to argue that receiving $7m for a film means we should feel sorry for the actor, but when Marvel is pulling in $200m+ and the actor might get paid more for another movie, there are reasons why Marvel's stinginess could backfire.

[shiznitz]

Don't confuse box office $ with revenue.

[Sir T]

Where Your Money Goes for a $9 Movie Ticket (breakdown)

— THE $9 TICKET BREAKDOWN —

Theater receives: $4.05
Helps pay for everything from maintaining the popcorn machines to air conditioning to ticket takers' salaries

Studio receives: $4.95
This amount is broken down into sub-categories:

ADVERTISING and MARKETING: $1.90
Nearly 75% of Public Enemies' estimated $100 million marketing budget goes to TV, radio, magazine, Internet, newspaper, and billboard ads. The rest covers expenses like market research and preview trailers.

PRODUCTION: $1.54
Includes the cost of sets, costumes, equipment rentals, filming permits, insurance, and such.

DISTRIBUTION: $0.90
Ten percent of every ticket goes directly to Universal Studios to cover costs such as sending movie reels to theaters.

ACTORS: $0.61
A-list star Johnny Depp's upfront pay for Public Enemies was an estimated $20 million; co-star Christian Bale probably got more than $10 million.

[Lakov_Sanite]

um...

[UnSub]

Don't confuse box office $ with revenue.

True, but then no movie ever makes any money. 

[LK]

Somehow I see this as a B-grade movie trying to be taken as seriously as a triple-A effort like Iron Man. Let's face it: the Marvel characters are just *better* for movies (exception: Batman) because of the fact that they are more complicated, interesting characters, production values aside. Their stories allow for character arcs to play out in a 2 hour span. DC just doesn't have that. They need to fabricate character arcs.

I like Ryan Renoylds, a LOT. But the problem with this movie is that he's dealing with a character that has nothing for him to act towards, so it's Ryan Renoylds as Green Lantern. The wonder of the characters are solely in his powers and not with anything to do with his personality or issues. So Ryan's takes over.

I can see flaws in my argument there. I haven't followed every single issue of Lantern, but when I think of DC characters, I only think of their powers and not any of the social ramifications they deal with that are disconnected from their powers. Again, exception: Batman.

tldr: what Khaldun said

[NowhereMan]

I disagree somewhat but then this thread moves into nerds arguing about minor details regarding characters 99% of people have never heard of. Suffice to say that I think there's the possibility for interesting stories to be told about many of DC's characters even if the movies always focus on 'This guy has superpowers!' Spiderman movies could be just about a guy that can stick to walls and you'd be left thinking that's all he is rather than getting some storytelling mileage out of a troubled teen trying his best to be a hero. Superman movies for me are always disappointing, possibly because it's so easy to just have Superman! and the whole Clark Kent in a phone booth thing is so strongly ingrained in popular psyche. How is someone leading a good life, struggling with living up to an impossible ideal they themselves have created all the while living in a world of people they could accidentally shred apart a mundane and one-dimensional source for telling stories? I mean aside from the fact that so many people who tackle it seem to think that all they need is someone in a cape and some green rock.

[HaemishM]

Reynolds would definitely make a better Kyle Rayner than Hal Jordan.

[Merusk]

Let's face it: the Marvel characters are just *better* for movies (exception: Batman) because of the fact that they are more complicated, interesting characters,

This has ALWAYS been the case, IMO, and a large part if not all of that is to Stan Lee's credit.   DC's characters, while more iconic, have always felt shallower.  Even Bats, who is my favorite character, owes most of his depth to revisions and other writers finding interesting hooks to weave into the character, rather than a deliberate effort on his creators' or DC's part.

[Evildrider]

Reynolds would definitely make a better Kyle Rayner than Hal Jordan.

I think he'd make a better Guy Gardner personally.

[Muffled]

I think he'd make a better stand up comedian, but the producers failed to ask my opinion.  Their loss.

[Khaldun]

I really think there has to have been some conversations going at the company level about the character, in part because DC in general is under pressure from above to match Marvel's currently superior planning about developing their intellectual property, which includes some integration of comics treatments and film ones. The film really looks to me visually and otherwise to be an attempt to "Iron Man" the character, and that's not just about a script, but about a gentle reboot of the character's whole presentation. I have a hard time believing that Johns and the scriptwriters just completely coincidentally thought along some of the same lines.

I think it's a little bit early to talk about Marvel's superior planning.  Most of their previous successes have been due to licensing Spidiey out to Sony, and the X-Men out to Fox.  It remains to be seen if Thor, Captain America, and the Avengers will equal Iron Man's success.  Meanwhile, DC has Nolan's Batman stuff which not only has bigger box office numbers, but improved dramatically from the first movie to the second, while a lot of people found Iron Man 2 to be disappointing.

Not so much thinking box office per se, but Marvel has a much more coherent plan for the integrated development of their intellectual property across multiple media. It's possible the whole Avengers thing isn't gonna work out in the movies, but in the meantime, it's pushing a raft of well-selling comics out the door, it's got a cartoon on TV, and so on. The company is just a lot better at the moment looking over their characters and figuring out how to sell them in a total media marketplace.

[Velorath]

I really think there has to have been some conversations going at the company level about the character, in part because DC in general is under pressure from above to match Marvel's currently superior planning about developing their intellectual property, which includes some integration of comics treatments and film ones. The film really looks to me visually and otherwise to be an attempt to "Iron Man" the character, and that's not just about a script, but about a gentle reboot of the character's whole presentation. I have a hard time believing that Johns and the scriptwriters just completely coincidentally thought along some of the same lines.

I think it's a little bit early to talk about Marvel's superior planning.  Most of their previous successes have been due to licensing Spidiey out to Sony, and the X-Men out to Fox.  It remains to be seen if Thor, Captain America, and the Avengers will equal Iron Man's success.  Meanwhile, DC has Nolan's Batman stuff which not only has bigger box office numbers, but improved dramatically from the first movie to the second, while a lot of people found Iron Man 2 to be disappointing.

Not so much thinking box office per se, but Marvel has a much more coherent plan for the integrated development of their intellectual property across multiple media. It's possible the whole Avengers thing isn't gonna work out in the movies, but in the meantime, it's pushing a raft of well-selling comics out the door, it's got a cartoon on TV, and so on. The company is just a lot better at the moment looking over their characters and figuring out how to sell them in a total media marketplace.

The Avengers have been a top selling comic since Bendis took over (sadly) many years ago.  They're also been consistently getting beaten in sales by the main Green Lantern series, and Brightest Day.  That said, nobody is going to be bragging about comic sales at the moment (except for maybe Walking Dead's strong TPB sales) as they've been pretty horrid all around, and aside from maybe some trades selling better at bookstores for a month or two, there doesn't seem to be any compelling evidence that the movies get people into the local comic shop buying single issues regardless of how you tie them into the movie.  DC's also done well enough with their cartoons and TV series to keep Kevin Conroy steadily employed as the voice of Batman for almost 20 years, and to have Smallville on its 10th season.

[HaemishM]

Selling single issue comics shouldn't be the aim of DC or Marvel anymore. That ain't where the monies at. The single issues should be seen (from a business standpoint) as a way to build a marketable movie franchise IP.

[Velorath]

Selling single issue comics shouldn't be the aim of DC or Marvel anymore. That ain't where the monies at. The single issues should be seen (from a business standpoint) as a way to build a marketable movie franchise IP.

That's essentially how DC under Warner Bros. has always seen it which is why they've never been under as much pressure to cancel lower selling books as Marvel.

[Fraeg]

*edit* reading is hard

[Evildrider]

The first trailer didn't wow me too much, however this new Green Lantern Wondercon video looks awesome.

[Ratman_tf]

You cannot "betray" the character of Hal Jordan. If he's "Ryan Reynolds finds a ring that's all powerful" that's as faithful to the comic as anything else.

Fuck the character. I just like to see good superhero movies. The trailers aren't giving me a ton of confidence that it'll be anything but reheated hollywood malarkey with a green power ring, but we'll see. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surpised when it comes out on DVD.

[Sand]

The first trailer didn't wow me too much, however this new Green Lantern Wondercon video looks awesome.

That looks fucking awesome! 

[nurtsi]

Big budget, charismatic lead actor, lots of action and special effects, throw in the necessary romantic side plot, etc. Looks like an AAA Hollywood summer movie. Kinda hard to fuck that up.

[MuffinMan]

Big budget, charismatic lead actor, lots of action and special effects, throw in the necessary romantic side plot, etc. Looks like an AAA Hollywood summer movie. Kinda hard to fuck that up.

Daredevil.

[SurfD]

Big budget, charismatic lead actor, lots of action and special effects, throw in the necessary romantic side plot, etc. Looks like an AAA Hollywood summer movie. Kinda hard to fuck that up.

Daredevil.

Catwoman?

[Lakov_Sanite]

Green Lantern, fucking be there.

[Sir T]

Big budget, charismatic lead actor, lots of action and special effects, throw in the necessary romantic side plot, etc. Looks like an AAA Hollywood summer movie. Kinda hard to fuck that up.

Daredevil.

Catwoman?

The Phantom

Batman 3 & 4

[Minvaren]

Trailer almost makes me want to see it - I hope they do it justice.

Seems like they're merging Hal and Kyle a bit here - Hal is the model of GL, but Kyle added a Peter Parker-like dimension to the character.