Ryan Reynolds will probably regret playing the role of Green Lantern (2011) till his last breath. You know the reason. The movie turned out to be a massive failure in terms of box office collection. With a huge budget of $200 million, it barely made it to $220 million.
There is always a common reason behind every flop movie: the movie is simply not good enough. And the same goes for Green Lantern. But instead of oversimplifying things, let’s talk about specific reasons behind such a flop. And there are 5 major causative factors I can think of behind this calamity:
- Poor CGI
- Bad Scripting
- Lack of Emotional Connection
- Negative Reviews
- Competition
It’s no secret that realistic special effects play a crucial role in almost every action and sci-fi movie these days. There is a certain level of expectation of high-quality CGI and VFX in modern superhero movies. And Green Lantern failed to meet that expectation terribly. Almost every visual effect in the movie felt unconvincing and super cartoonish. And boy, the Green Lantern suit! Could it be any worse-looking?
IMO, Green Lantern has the coolest-looking suit among all the Justice League members. But the movie ruined it by making a whole cartoon suit of Green Lantern Corps. “Don’t make my suit green, or animated,” said the guy for a reason.
Also, the Parallax, Guardians of OA, other members of the corps, and literally any computer-generated figure in the movie looked ridiculous. I don’t know if the VFX and CGI of any $200 million movie could be worse than that. Oh, wait, there is The Flash (2022)!
2. Bad Scripting
I believe a movie can pass the test with poor visual effects if the story is well-written, convincing, and appealing. And Green Lantern did an even worse job with the story than its awful VFX. Let’s not forget that it was the origin movie of Green Lantern and was supposed to start a cinematic universe of DC comics. The movie was supposed to set the tone for the upcoming movies, but it failed to set the tone for itself.
Green Lantern felt overly dense with plots and characters. The movie had three different villains, including Parallax. I mean, why? I really want to know whose idea it was to bring Parallax as the main villain of an origin Green Lantern movie. That decision got me thinking that the scriptwriters just googled a bunch of information and started making the film instead of having a proper study of Green Lantern’s character.
You know what I think would be best? Keeping Hector as the only villain of the movie. The story of Hal Jordan and Hector would stand parallel and make more sense. Instead of shoving thousands of plots into a single movie, they should have focused on the proper character development of Hal and Hector. As that didn’t happen, Hal couldn’t become the hero that he needed to be, and Hector didn’t become much of a villain when he could have been a lot more. We don’t feel any connection with these characters, which brings the third point:
3. Lack of Emotional Connection
-Do you feel anything?
-No
That was my honest reaction to every supposed-to-be “impactful scene” of the Green Lantern movie. The characters of the movie are written so poorly that as the audience we struggled to find any emotional connection with them at all. And that’s one of the main reasons why Green Lantern failed.
Hal Jordan loses his father at such an early age in an accident that happens in front of him. That’s a hell of a tragic event. But the way we see that in the movie, it just doesn’t touch our emotions. Because the buildup of the relationship between Hal and his father was rushed and undercooked. So, every time Hal says or does something that reflects his tragic past, well… “don’t feel anything.”
The same goes for Hector Hammond. This is the character that I should have found most relatable (you know, being the disappointment for everyone). But I barely felt sympathy for that guy.
The whole movie is filled with examples like these. Establishing the triangle-romantic aspects, struggles in the workplace, the nature of relationships with friends and family, the parallel of Hal and Hector’s life—Green Lantern failed to convince us emotionally in all of these sectors.
The movie lacks the most essential elements for a movie to get more acceptance among the audience.
4. Negative Reviews
Ratings and reviews have a big influence after a movie’s release. And these big influences worked for the Green Lantern movie pretty negatively. Rotten Tomatoes score of 25% (audience score 45%) and IMDb rating of 5.5/10 speak for the movie’s quality.
There’s not much to say about this. The ratings and reviews on different platforms made it pretty clear that the movie was not worth spending money on. And that had a huge negative impact on the box office collection.
5. Competition
Green Lantern was released on June 17, 2011. And around May, June, and July of that year, superhero movies like X-Men: First Class, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger were also released. Clearly, these movies were far better and pretty tough competitors than Green Lantern as superhero movies.
Not just superhero movies. Hangover II, Cars 2, Kung Fu Panda 2, Transformer: Dark of the Moon… you name it. Green Lantern didn’t even have a chance. There were just too many good movies around Green Lantern’s release date. And if you want to spend your precious time on the weekend and 10-15 bucks watching a movie, most likely you wouldn’t choose Green Lantern with all these bad reviews and ratings. Guess that’s what happened with the movie.
Gosh, Green Lantern’s failure reminds me of another massive disaster from the DC Extended Universe: The Flash movie. I think I will write about this movie’s failure sketch as well.
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