In brightest day, in blackest night, no audience dollar shall escape Green Lantern’s light. Or so hope Warner Bros. and DC Comics, who are hoping to gain back a little ground from Marvel this summer, with the upcoming Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds.
Next summer is likely to be a banner one for DC, as the third and final Christopher Nolan directed Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, hits theaters on July 20. A new Superman film will then debut in December of 2012, but in the meantime, DC’s rival Marvel is kicking sand in the face of its competitor. Not counting franchises with a Bat or Man of Steel in them, DC has not been able to generate the excitement for its properties in the same way that Marvel has. If Green Lantern is a success, that might all change, and not only will a new franchise be born, you can expect to see several other big name DC characters heading to the big screen soon.
But before we might see a Flash or a Wonder Woman movie (not to be confused with the upcoming Wonder Woman TV show), Green Lantern needs to do well. Making back its money is an obvious requirement, but it needs to generate some buzz to keep the DC line relevant.
Whether it can or not will be decided this summer. The film is less about a single character, as it is about the galactic organization of the Green Lanterns, a peacekeeping force tasked with defending the universe. When one of the most respected members of the Corps is mortally wounded, he heads to Earth to find a man he has never met, but who the fate of everyone will rest on when the entity known as Parallax attempts to devour the Earth. If this new Lantern, Hal Jordan (Reynolds) fails, Earth will just be the first to fall. But to succeed, he must become the greatest Green Lantern of them all.
Directed by Martin Campbell, Green Lantern stars Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard and Mark Strong. It hits theaters in 3D on June 17.
