Ryan Reynolds redeemed his superhero credibility with Deadpool, but Green Lantern, in which he starred just five years prior, was a catastrophic flop on both the critical and commercial fronts. Now, its star is pinning its disastrous production down to “too much time, too much money.”
Appearing at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in London, Ryan Reynolds was asked about Green Lantern, a movie that is certainly easy to laugh at. “There was just too many people spending too much money and when there was a problem rather than say, ‘Okay, let’s stop spending on special effects and let’s think about character. How do we replace this big spectacle thing – that isn’t working at all – with something that’s character based?’ and that just never – the thinking was never there to do that…And to their credit, it’s a very old school way of looking at things. It’s just ‘Let’s just keep spending our way through this.’”
Ryan Reynolds did back peddle a bit, saying Green Lantern was at least fun to shoot. Still, “Sitting in that premiere, watching that, oh my God…The words were ‘Holy Shit’ and ‘No. NO!’” Despite his claimed reaction, Reynolds has previously said he never saw the finished cut of Green Lantern, apparently having seen enough with just the rough cut. Perhaps he snuck out the bathroom window at the premiere?
Ryan Reynolds has been far from quiet about his dislike for Green Lantern, even tacking on a post-credits scene in Deadpool 2 in which the Merc with a Mouth shoots and kills Reynolds before he can sign on to the movie. He even released his own “cut” of Green Lantern, which ran a breezy 27 seconds…
Green Lantern stands as one of the worst-reviewed movies based on a DC property, sitting in the company of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and Superman III.
What do you think of Green Lantern? Is the movie as bad as its reputation says or does it have redeeming qualities? Would you want to see Reynolds reprise his Green Lantern role sometime in DC’s future? Let us know below!