So, though I don’t go very much anymore, I still consider myself a big film fan. I used to go to the movies pretty much every weekend for years. Over the last few years however, I’ve found myself becoming increasingly bored with entertainment today – films and tv. That, and other projects/interests/personal life reasons have made me cut back on my movie going.

However, around the beginning of the year I remember mentioning to my mom that there were three films this year that I actually believed I would go see:

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II. Mostly because yes, I’ve read all the books and so kinda feel obligated to see how the film series of them closes this all out.

2. The Muppets. Because dammit the teaser trailers are hysterical. And I loved the Muppets when I was a kid.

3. Green Lantern. Because dammit, I’m a DC-girl to the core. When I was little it was always the DC Comics heroes I gravitated to more than the Marvel ones (mostly because they had more interesting female characters I think). I’m not a hard-core GL fan, but I’ve always really liked the mythology of it all, and said to my mom I will go see it opening day if the reviews are at least decent.

. . .

Oh.

Yeah. I guess this narrows the movies I’m going to see this year down to two now.

I hate people who review films they haven’t even seen, so this isn’t what this is. But it does make me want to comment, overall, on DC and DC Entertainment’s handling of, well, everything lately.

You know, I bet if Marvel had had a show like Smallville on the air for 10 years for one of it’s big superheroes, a post-series comic book (in the vein of the Buffy Season 8 comics) would have been in the works the minute the final season was announced and would have begun publication two weeks after the series finale aired.

Because Marvel just seems to be more business/marketing savvy than DC Comics at the moment. Way more business savvy.

Maybe it has something to do with Marvel having been bought by Disney. If there is one thing Disney knows? It’s marketing/branding.

DC doing . . . whatever it is the hell they are doing with regards to the comics at the moment . . . goes into this inability to have any sort of business savvy. The idea that Smallville fans are going to give a shit about what they are doing to Superman in the comics shows how utterly they are unable to read and market to the audience they are trying to target.

Reportedly, the Green Lantern movie cost $200 million to make. (Not including the marketing costs). At that kind of budget, comic book fans were not the only people being targeted for this film. There are not enough comic book fans (let alone Green Lantern fans) in the world for this movie to even hope to turn a profit by trying to only appeal to those fans. This movie was clearly being positioned to try appeal and introduce new people to Green Lantern and the Green Lantern mythology.

And hopefully, of course, up the readership of the Green Lantern comic books.

Now? With these reviews? (Plus word of mouth starting to look not all that great either)? Forget bringing new fans into the comic books, I’m wondering if this movie will even be able to break even (with production + marketing the budget has to be about $300 million at least).

And if this thing doesn’t do killer at the Box Office this weekend and next? You can forget about a sequel.

I didn’t follow the production of the movie, but I do wonder if it was rushed in order to start trying to compete with Marvel at the Box Office. And that thought has me . . . worried about Man of Steel. Really worried.

Because people can throw Nolan’s name around all they want, but he is not directing the movie. Hell, if what I understand is correct, he didn’t even co-write it. He’s Executive Producing the film, and that’s it.

And if you notice, the DC superhero movie Nolan IS directing? Didn’t come out two years after The Dark Knight. It’s not being rushed. Nolan is taking his time with it – and Warner Bros. is obviously letting him. Because they want it to be good, and get just as much praise and acclaim as The Dark Knight did.

Instead of trying to compete with Marvel with quantity, DC should focus on quality instead. Because despite all the superhero movie properties Marvel has out there, which company had the superhero movie that had critics gushing for weeks and decrying the Academy for snubbing it for an Oscar nomination for Best Picture – to the point that the Motion Picture Academy decided to go back to something that hadn’t been done since the late 1930s – nominating 10 films for Best Picture from now on?

It wasn’t Marvel DC Comics. It wasn’t Marvel.