Disagree. For pure name-recognition, their big three are (in order) Superman, Batman and Robin. Wonder Woman is a very close fourth.
Thank you, you guys seemed to need the lecture. Most people will probably know Thor as a Norse god with a hammer. You know what they will know about Captain America and Green Lantern? Nada. Zip. The vast majority of people who recognize the names will just know them vaguely as comic-book characters. But the universe of people who recognize the names will be VERY small compared to the number of people who recognize Thor, because Thor has an existence OUTSIDE the dying niche industry that comics have been for the last 30-40 years. Whether this will translate into success for the movie, who knows?
Let’s face it, if it weren’t for the fact that Hollywood seems to have latched onto the notion that comic book characters can do well at the box office, naming comic book heroes would be like naming text adventure game heroes. An exercise for fans only.
Please. Captain America’s death (as well as Wonder Woman’s recent wardrobe change) were national news reported on by mainstream news outlets. Monthly comics may be a niche industry (though no more so than any other magazine), but many of the characters themselves long ago passed into the public consciousness.
And besides that, why do you think Thor is so well known nowadays? Thor may have always been a pretty well known Norse god, but the Norse pantheon always played second fiddle to Greek and Roman gods. It was only through the comic that he is as popular as he is today.
Quoth Mister Rik:
That’s the wrong standard to use for this context, since that just addresses the character’s popularity among comic book readers. For a superhero movie, comic book readers are the low-hanging fruit: Anyone who reads comic books at all is pretty likely to go see even a mediocre superhero movie, even one featuring one of the other company’s characters. A Marvel reader might be more excited about a Captain America movie than a Green Lantern movie, but he’s probably still going to buy a ticket for both. What will make a difference for movies isn’t the comic-book demographic, but how recognized and popular the characters are outside of that demographic.
I decided to settle this the most scientific way possible, with Google!
Now, Thor on it’s own returns 74 millions results, but the name Thor is used for a lot of different things. I doubt people are going to the movie thinking it’s about the motocross clothing company.
So I added a modifier to the names.
thor + marvel - 1,490,000 results
thor + norse -marvel - 1,390,000 results
“captain america” +marvel - **8,**860,000 results (without the Marvel modifier, it jumps to 27 million. But I don’t know many other uses of Captain America)
“green lantern” +dc - 6,930,000 results (now, there is a club in Washington DC called the Green Lantern, but even if we cut out half the results, it’s still more than both versions of Thor combined.)
Captain America has a Rocketeer vibe because Joe Johnston directed both!
Four minutes of the Wondercon footage from Green Lantern has been released, and it looks good. Lot’s of space, lot’s of the Corps, and lots of Oa. The thing that would have hurt this movie the most was keeping it small, Earth-based, and focused on just our one Green Lantern. You know, a cautious exploration of the market for a GL movie, then roll out the big bucks you need for a space epic for the sequel.
The people marketing Thor are kicking ass. They know exactly what they need to communicate to the public: The God of Thunder. The cast and director could hardly be bested.
Finally, there was a lot of talk a few years ago about a second-tier superhero with no popular name recognition whose movie would flop: Iron Man. So take the dire predictions for GL and Thor with a tablespoon of salt. Ryan Reynolds has enough charisma to do for the Green Lantern what Robert Downey Jr. did for Iron Man, and the Thor script is right on with that same tone as well. Have you seen the scene where he downs coffee, smashes his cup, and declares that he likes “this drink” and orders more? Great. At every turn, I’ve been shown that these productions know what they’re doing.
For real? The Thor Comic-Con footage was a disaster and the first trailer wasn’t much better (though, I’ll grant, it was better). And do you remember the first costume reveal. It was mocked soundly.
If Thor didn’t star… well, Thor… this whole conversation would be moot as few other superheroes could survive the ineptitude of Thor’s marketing.
I’ll take that bet! Say, $20? (Roughly enough for a ticket + popcorn + soda, at least around here.) This is assuming we restrict it to the three films listed in the poll. (I think the X-men movie will do worse than Green Lantern.)
Main question - how do we define “worst”? Worldwide boxoffice sales?
Both batsuits from the Nolan films have received equal mocking, but there was no impact in ticket sales. I’m not a fan of rubberized super suits either, but the helmet looks cool enough, and the hammer is fantastic. I’m just happy the helmet and cape exist in the first place.
Did you mean the Schumacher films? Because I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone bitch about the Batman suits in the Nolan films like I heard about Thor’s mesh mess.
Quoth enalzi:
I’m not sure that’s really fair… I mean, there’s a reason that motocross clothing company chose that name, isn’t there? The fact that there are a lot of things named after Thor is evidence that he is relatively well-known.
Done. Let’s agree on the terms.
- Bet is for $20. You say Green Lantern will do the worst of the three films. I say it won’t.
- “Worst” shall be defined as domestic box office receipts. Budget, “break even” metrics, etc. won’t play a part since those figures are far too easily fudged. Is this acceptable to you?
- Bet will be honored by September 2011 or at such a time where the result is obvious, whichever comes first.
How’s that sound? And are there any other takers?
And this is based on what exactly? Your say so? You’ll have to do better than that
There’s no arguing he’s “second-tier”. But the fact remains that in the domain outside of comic books (in his case, television), he has had significantly more facetime than either Thor or Cap. People may recognize the name, but that kind of name-recognition (“I’ve heard the name but don’t know anything about him”) doesn’t bring people to the theater. Green Lantern has had exponentially more exposure in the non-comic-book world. Superfriends even called him one of the 3 most powerful DC heroes–even more powerful than Batman or Aquaman. “Second tier” he may be, but he’s still far better known that Thor or Cap among laymen.
Thor +comic 12,600,000
Captain America +comic 8.900,000
Green Lantern +comic 7,390,000
Books… and classrooms… etc.? Do they have a facebook page? Or maybe three?
Yeah, I totally meant Schumacher, but coincidentally misspelled it as “Nolan”. Ahem.
Ever visit superherohype or newsarama? Those core fans will bitch about every aspect of a film out of one side of their mouth and praise it from the other. Thor and Batman (Nolan) are equals in that regard.
Well, I added the modifier because I was looking at how many people talking about him as a superhero/norse god, not talking about Cold Laser Therapy. Interestingly, in the first 30 results, 10 are about different things named Thor.
Yeah, that’s probably a better way to do it. Oddly enough, when I search “Captain America” +comic, I get 20 millions results. (But adding quotes to Green Lantern doesn’t change much). Of course I don’t claim to know anything about how Google works.
But really, this whole “recognition” argument is a bit of a moot point. How many people knew what “Avatar” was? (and the .5% of people who thought they were going to see an Airbender movie don’t count.) You look at the number of results for “Iron Man” comic before 2008 (cool feature, Google. Did not know that existed) and it’s about 2 million.
Honestly, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard complete praise for any comic book costume since the 90’s.
Sounds good. Bet accepted. 
How will that help sell tickets to Thor?
The thing is, by all appearances “Thor” looks like a horrible movie. The trailer is an absolute mess - it’s not even appealing in the way trailers can be when the movie sucks but they do a good job pasting together parts of a sucky movie into a trailer that appears to be from a better movie.