Green Lantern makes $21min N. American opening day.

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Well it may have had some of the worst reviews we’ve seen for a while (It’s an average movie not a Batman & Robin scale disaster) but the ring wearing, painted on costume having DC hero still managed to pull off an estimated $21,605,000 opening day gross, including $3.35m from midnight shows. As with the midnight shows, this figure is almost identical to the opening day of X-Men: First Class, which made $21,398,778 on its opening Friday. There’s any number of ways to spin that; X-Men is an established series so matching that film’s opening day, with an unknown character, is a good thing. On the other han, Ryan Reynolds is much better known than the cast of X-Men and Green Lantern’s total costs are put at something like $300m as opposed to something like $210m for X-Men. The point at which each film becomes a financial success and / or reaches the point that spawns sequels, is very different for each film

The Ryan Reynolds movie has been trying to stay ahead of a wave of negativity since it’s disastrous trailer preview back in November 2010. Its recovery in recent weeks, in terms of the better marketing, seems to have helped some, although as a big movie, with a well known star and a character with a very decent fan following, you could argue it would have made this on its opening day no matter what. Perversely the scathing reviews may actually help the film. People’s expectations have been severely lowered and many are likely to leave feeling it was a much better film than they expected.

Once again there was an absence of younger people at the North American box office as 63% of the audience was over the age of 25. Of course given that the comic has been around for decades, that may not be as surprising as it first appears. Indications are that, once again, public opinion and critical opinion are poles apart. The film earned a B Cinemascore