'Green Lantern' Box Office Already a Huge Success

The "Green Lantern" box office can already be considered successful. It looks like the "Green Lantern" box office already passed $20 million in its first official day in theaters. That's a good start, and it could possibly lead to a very successful opening for the latest DC comic to hit the big screen.

According to Box Office Mojo, "Green Lantern" made an estimated $21.6 million in its first day out. It's a good start that is already better than what "X-Men: First Class" ($21.4) was able to pull in. It also leads to easy predictions that the movie will make at least $60 million before the worst weekend in theaters comes to a close.

The most obvious way to state whether "Green Lantern" is a success will be to compare it to the production budget. Warner Brothers has done a pretty good job at keeping that under wraps, but an educated guess would certainly put it at north of $100 million. It seems likely to earn at least that much in the first two weeks of release, but overseas box office receipts and good word-of-mouth could be very important.

This is already the fourth comic book film that has been released this summer, following "Thor," "Priest," and the new "X-Men" movie which came out in a month's time. "Captain America: The First Avenger" will also hit theaters on July 22, so there is at least one more still waiting in the wings. "Thor" was a wide success, pulling in just over $175.2 million in the domestic box office, but "Priest" was only able to manage just over $29 million. Both films have also done pretty well in the foreign box office though, making the production companies quite happy.

"Green Lantern" stars Ryan Reynolds as the main character (Hal Jordan), but also includes many supporting characters that help drive the story. It includes Blake Lively as the love interest, Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong, Angela Bassett, and Tim Robbins. Directed by Martin Campbell, this is an origins story that finally gives American audiences a feel for the "Green Lantern" mythology. Whether that is accepted will dictate if there is a sequel, which has been the case for just about every other DC character to come along.

While the first day totals have to be pretty pleasing for producers so far, this movie has a long ways to go before it is considered a box office hit. Reynolds and Lively might help it a lot on their own, but the enjoyment level that the first viewers have this weekend will dictate if it has "legs" in the theaters.