If you've been reading this blog, you'll know I've been a fan of Green Lantern since the late 80's/Early 90's. The fanbase seems to have expanded greatly, even though the movie was a flop, and deservedly so as there was no love in its making. The potential was there, a good movie could have been made with the pieces they had, but too much was spent trying to make it a blockbuster and not enough was spent making it a good movie.
I'm in the camp that Hal Jordan, while the first Green Lantern, the one shown in the movies, is not the best Green Lantern. That is to say, every other Green Lantern than him (even the aliens) have more personality and are more entertaining. Hal Jordan is only truly interesting in conflict with other lanterns. This is my opinion.
That said, Green Lantern the Animated Series managed to make Hal Jordan an engaging character. They managed to introduce some great characters from the comicbook series, and produce two pretty good half seasons. One focused on the rage fueled Red Lanterns, and the other focused on the Anti Monitor and the Manhunters. We also got to see the Star Sapphires and Blue Lanterns introduced. The creators and writers did a great job introducing these concepts and creating a good storyline. If you're in the USA, the series will be on Netflix soon, if it isn't already, and it's worth watching for an introduction to the Green Lantern characters.
Cartoon Network has cancelled the series after one season.
The tragic thing about this is the series (along with the preceding Young Justice, also cancelled) has the potential to introduce a lot of people to the Green Lantern franchise. To build a following of Green Lantern fans and potentially, if Warner Brothers plays their cards right, spawn an actual money spinning movie franchise. Even just a second season would have been sufficient to introduce the Sinestro Corps and perhaps some other Green Lantern villains and heroes. But Warner Brothers will tragically never see this, because of short sighted people at Cartoon Network who only care about immediate returns.
The second tragic thing about it is there was no toy line for Green Lantern, save for some McDonald's happy meal toys, which my nephew loved. I would have loved to have bought some real quality toys, but because of the shit quality of toys made for the shit quality movie Green Lantern, the cartoon did not get its own toy line. Nothing. Zero, Zilch, Nada.
The fact that Warner Brothers bungled their Green Lantern franchise on SO MANY LEVELS is plain to see. You can watch how Marvel/Disney does things in complete contrast. They pump out as much product as possible, get peoples eyes on it. Theres an Avengers cartoon, an Iron Man cartoon, there are toys, you bet there are toys. Even if they don't sell. They pimp their shit out. And they produce a quality movie too. And they do it all in the right order.
Did the success of Batman happen in a vacuum? No, it was built up over time. People became introduced to the character thanks to the 60's series, and there were Batman movies and shows before then.
Did Spider-Man happen in a vacuum? Hell no. Spider-Man had years of exposure in cartoons and comics. the 60's cartoon was cheaply made but aired for years. He was shown on the Electric Company, he had a Japanese live action show. He had a series with his amazing friends. He had another series in the 90's. It was all organic. Each built on what came previous.
Warner Brothers lucked into Batmans success. Tim Burton probably fought tooth and nail to do his Batman movie right, against the wishes of the idiots running Warner Brothers. Marvel sold off the rights to Spider-Man's movie franchise while they were going bankrupt but even still it managed to save them, and they retained enough properties that they meticulously planned a method to reproduce the Spider-Man success. And they did with Iron Man, and it was a great success. And then Thor, and Captain America. They weren't all perfect, but the people who made these movies seemed interested in telling a good story and retaining the core of these characters. And they eventually got bought by Disney, who seem capable of carrying the torch and continuing to make these properties profitable, while producing good quality entertainment.
Green Lantern, nor any other property owned by Warner Brothers that isn't Batman or Superman, will ever achieve what Disney/Marvel are achieving. They don't get it.
I could give them a bullet point form way to make Green Lantern profitable. I could give them a way to make some lesser known properties into huge franchises like Marvel has. But I doubt they want to hear it. They just want to throw spaghetti at the wall and hope something sticks. Get a big name, big budget, throw a story in a blender, voila. Catwoman starring Halle Berry. Voila Jonah Hex. Voila Green Lantern.
You are incompetent, Warner Brothers executives. You own Cartoon Network, you own DC Comics. I have no words to describe how pathetic your internal politics are.
Disney owned channels excel at promoting and creating Disney properties.
Warner Brothers owned channels excel at the Amazing Orange.
Why anyone would buy stock in Warner Brothers I can't imagine.
Warner Brothers had a get out of jail free card for the Green Lantern franchise, and Cartoon Network bungled it horribly.
Why they don't see what's happening and fire whoever is in charge there, I'd like to know.
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