Throwing Money at the Problem…

This past weekend, I just watched the Green Lantern movie for the first time and I saw where the $200 million went in the making of the film.  Honestly, I didn’t think that the movie was that bad to the point those critics had to bash it.  At the same time, I saw that the movie could have been “tightened up” to make a better product.  All the money that they spent on the film, a good chunk of it went to advertising, especially after seeing the ads and displays all over Century City (here in Los Angeles for example), which I thought was a waste because there were parts of the film that could have been done differently instead of wasting quite a bit of money on it.  I understand about promotions and everything, however I feel that some of the money could have been used more on development to get it “right.”   Basically, Green Lantern could have been a lot better, and would have launched the DC Comics properties like Marvel has done with their stable of characters (like Iron Man, Thor, etc…) but they came up short in the story department.  A good chunk of money that was spent on the advertising could have been used to hire more writers to come in and rewrite certain parts of the film to “tighten up” certain elements, and then do away with other parts of it that didn’t seem right or that were a bit forced to a degree.  Not to give away any “spoilers,” but certain parts, if they were written properly, would have given the movie an edge instead of just throwing them in there for the movie’s sake.  I remember watching Spider-Man 3 a few years back, and basically, a super-villain, Venom (a major Spider-Man baddie), was “shoe-horned” and didn’t get that much screen time (much to my dismay), and yet again they spent quite a bit of money on it, and it was a success, it left a bad taste in my mouth as a film goer.  Just because the big studios throw a lot of money at a project, doesn’t mean that the film is going to be any good.  I always go by the adage, “what looks good on paper, doesn’t mean it’s going to look good on film.”  What I can add in there is what looks good by spending a whole lot of money, doesn’t mean that it’s going to “glitter” on the big screen, either. 

My advice is simple…

Keep the story tight and cohesive, and then, and then maybe then the money that is spent would be well worth it, not only to the filmmakers, but also to the movie-going public.   Don’t insult them by spending too much, to say “its gold-looking” and all it turns out to be “lead” on the big screen.