While the box office performance for Warner Brothers Green Lantern has probably not lived up to expectations, studio is reportedly still going ahead with plans for a sequel.
The Hollywood Reporter is saying that Warners is hoping that the film will have some legs at the box office in order to pay back its estimated $200 million production cost. With the Harry Potter franchise ending with the release of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2 in just a few weeks, the studio has been hoping to replace it with a series of comic book adaptations.
That might prove a bit difficult, though. Last weekend, the film opened to a soft weekend box office take of $53 million last week. This past weekend saw a drop at the box office of some 66%, only pulling in an estimated $18 million. Adding in the small bit of foreign box office intake and the film has only pulled in just shy of $119 million in ten days. (Figures from Box Office Mojo.) And that doesn’t include the massive amount spent on advertising the film.
But the Reporter‘s story quotes an Warner Bros. president of domestic distribution Dan Fellman as optimistically saying that “the movie is settling in, pointing out that fanboy pics often see a significant drop-off in their second weekends.”
Of course, Warners has been planning on a sequel since last year when in June they hired the films writers Greg Berlanti, Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim to begin developing a storyline for Green Lantern 2 which was then handed off to writer Michael Goldenberg in August.
