The reputation of Martin Campbell's 2011 superhero flick "Green Lantern" precedes it. "Green Lantern" was one of the more high-profile bombs of its decade, making $237 million on a $200 million budget. Although the Hal Jordan/Green Lantern character had been a part of DC Comics since 1959, he was still a tough sell to mainstream audiences, given how strange he was. 

Briefly: the Green Lantern belongs to the Green Lantern Corps, a widespread intergalactic peacekeeping force of aliens that merrily sails around the cosmos righting wrongs. The members of the Corps are "selected" by semi-sentient rings that affix themselves randomly to their fingers and grant them bizarre superpowers. Green Lantern can fly, yes, but also construct physical objects ... out of the color green. Oh yes, and green is the color of willpower, and the other colors of the spectrum also have their own emotional powers behind them. The mythology runs deeper, of course,...