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It’s a decent start and is almost identical to the $3.25m Thor made in it’s US midnight opening and the $3.75 X-Men: First Class made too. On the other hand, neither of those films had a star anywhere near the level of Ryan Reynolds in the lead role; Green Lanterns solo comics have been amongst the hottest titles in recent years (especially given that Marvel have been returning to their position of dominance in that area) and the film had a significantly higher budget than the other two movies (as much as $100m more).
Midnight openings are notoriously difficult to extrapolate from though. Thor parlayed its $3.3m opening into a $35.7m opening weekend, but X-Men: First Class’s opening was $11m less at $55m, despite a slighter busier night-shift. Fast Five opened to $86m on a $3.8m Midnight opening. Of course Fast Five, Thor & X-Men opened on nights when most people would have had school, work or college the a few hours later, but a fair number of students are on holiday now. (I believe??)
The film has suffered from a terrible marketing campaign, where a trailer was released consisting mainly of out of context humour (moistly falling flat) and largely unimpressive CGI. It was a studied example of why it better to not release a trailer until you have something worth showing, as the film undoubtedly did more harm than good. That said things have improved recently and despite a dreadful 22% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes the film is likely to be given a chance by moviegoers, who tend to make their own minds up about these kind of films. With an estimated $300m on the line and Warner Brothers trying to show that they can make a hit Comic book movie that doesn’t star Batman or Superman (and let’s face it there have been almost as many failures as successes even there) there will be a few men in suits sweating the ticket sales this weekend and in the following weeks too.
Ryan Reynolds may not have too much to worry about. He’s already played super heroes in Blade and Wolverine (er & Paperman) and has a second go at playing Deadpool (who he had an extended cameo as in Wolverine) in the not too distant future so there’s no time to let himself go. No Krispy Kreme for you Ryan!
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