UPDATE: With the solo movie stalled, DC keeps finding work for the Main Man — Lobo has now landed a role in the Starfire! animated series from DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation.
Jason Momoa put Lobo’s future on the record before Supergirl opened, and he tied it to one thing: the movie doing well.
Momoa laid out the path himself, pointing to how his Aquaman was introduced in Batman v Superman, carried into Justice League, and then earned a solo movie.
He saw Lobo working the same way, from a Supergirl introduction to a bigger DCU role, saying people needed to go see it, that if audiences liked him they’d do more, and that if fans really loved him, “f*ck it, I’ll get my solo movie.”
Then Supergirl opened to $37 million and collapsed 80% in its second weekend.
Lobo won the movie and lost the launchpad
Here’s the cruel part. By every measure, Momoa held up his end.
Lobo is the best-received thing in the film. The opening-weekend press screening crowd called him welcome, our insiders loved him even while noting he doesn’t move the plot, and Warner Bros. itself just answered the question of who the asset is by making Lobo the face of Supergirl’s digital release.
The character worked. Even his concept art is out-reviewing the movie.
But a solo movie doesn’t get greenlit off a supporting player winning a bomb. Momoa’s Aquaman path ran through Batman v Superman, a movie that did $873 million worldwide.
Lobo’s introduction is running toward a $150 million worldwide ceiling and a nine-figure write-down. The character cleared the bar. The launchpad didn’t.
Who would even greenlight it?
The bigger problem is that the Lobo solo pitch no longer has an obvious buyer.
Lobo in Supergirl was a Gunn call, with our insiders reporting a Lobo scene was added in post to get more of him into the movie.
Gunn is also the one positioning Momoa for Man of Tomorrow. But Gunn’s DC contract is believed to expire right as Paramount takes over, and our insiders say he’ll be out.
A Lobo solo movie pitched to the incoming regime is an orphaned project from the old one, attached to its biggest flop.
There’s one wrinkle in Momoa’s favor. If the SnyderVerse comes back the way our insiders say it’s trending, Momoa is the rare actor with a foot in both universes, the old regime’s Aquaman and the new one’s Lobo.
Whoever ends up running DC, he’s already on their roster in one form or another.
The only Lobo movie that pencils
If a solo Lobo happens, it won’t look like the pitch from June.
The lesson every analyst has drawn from Supergirl is that you can’t spend tentpole money on characters who aren’t A-listers.
The model now is Clayface, in theaters this fall at a reported $40 million budget, or the original Joker, which turned $62 million into a billion.
A lean, R-rated, contained Lobo movie is the only version that survives any regime, Gunn’s, Ellison’s, or Snyder’s, because it’s the only version where the math forgives the character’s ceiling.
Momoa said it was up to the fans. The fans answered a question about Supergirl instead. If Lobo gets his movie anyway, it’ll be because he was the one thing they liked about the answer.
