Top 10 Film Industry Stories of 2011: #4
Superhero Summer
By David Mumpower
December 29, 2011
Captain America nearly matched Thor’s opening weekend with $65.0 million. While it didn’t prove as leggy, the film earned a better than expected $176.7 million domestically with a final global take of $368.8 million. Yes, it did better than expected overseas, which speaks to the genius of making a World War II piece.
With three releases from two competing studios, Marvel Studios somehow went three for three. Their titles combined for worldwide box office of $1.17 billion against production costs of $430 million. Out of the three features, only X-Men contained established characters. In addition, the lead in to The Avengers went perfectly as both Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger are well liked titles. Marvel had a best case scenario summer.
DC Comics was not so fortunate. After Jonah Hex bombed out of theaters in 2010, there was a perception within the industry that the other major comic book publication needed a hit. After Batman, there simply has not been another comic book character established as a box office draw. Superman Returns disappointed, the Wonder Woman project was abandoned and everyone was sent back to the drawing board.
Eventually, the determination was made that Green Lantern would be the best choice for their summer of 2011 movie release. This was regrettable. The bejeweled superhero skews very young, which is exactly what made Spider-Man so appealing upon its release a decade ago. Alas, there isn’t much appeal to the character. The backstory of Green Lantern is expansive, a wildly complex multiverse with thousands of alien races. I could go into further detail but you would get bored almost immediately. Suffice to say that little blue aliens hire police to run the universe, all of the best of them are earthlings for whatever reason, and one of the alien police says poozer a lot. Sounds like a huge hit, right?
Audiences were less than enthusiastic about this Star Wars wannabe. After a hopeful $53.2 million debut, word-of-mouth poisoned the well for Green Lantern. On the shoulders of angry reviews, there was nothing but negative buzz going for the attempted franchise launch. Green Lantern quickly destructed at the box office, finishing with only $116.6 million, one of the worst final takes ever for a $50+ million opener.
In fact, the loathsome standard for comic book disappearing acts, Batman & Robin, had a much better final box office multiplier (final domestic take divided by opening weekend take) of 2.5 vs. 2.2. Also, Batman & Robin earned more in terms of actual post-opening weekend dollars than Green Lantern, $64.4 million vs. $63.4 million. Yes, ouch.
Green Lantern wound up with global receipts of $238.3 million, which means that it was in the red when it exited theaters. Its production budget of $200 million was the most expensive of the four comic book movies by a whopping $40 million (or 25% more than any of the others). The one reason why this could be deemed a tolerable result for DC Comics and Warner Bros. is that the less publicized revenue stream for any comic book movie targeted to children is toy sales. Captain America, Thor and Green Lantern have all had their licensed merchandise covering the aisles of Toys R Us this holiday season. The primary difference between the three is that Green Lantern really needs the money to justify the expense of making a bad movie that not enough people went to see in theaters.
What we learned during the Superhero Summer of 2001 is that if a comic book adaptation is done well, audiences will give it a shot independent of the subject matter. If, on the other hand, there is nothing more to the movie than shiny special effects and a dude in spandex tights, word spreads quickly and mercilessly. Also, the 2011 experience serves as a tremendous trial run for 2012 when Spider-Man, The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises are all released between May and July. This is the deluxe version of 2011’s Superhero Summer.
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