Superhero movies area powerful force in the entertainment industry, but they haven't all been winners. One somewhat infamous entry within the genre was Martin Campbell's Green Lantern (which is streaming with a Max subscription). The filmmaker recently shared one big way he could have improved the blockbuster, and he's not wrong (in my opinion).
Fans who spent years watching the DC movies in order will remember Ryan Reynolds' short tenure as the Green Lantern before he pivoted to Marvel for the Deadpool franchise (streaming with a Disney+ subscription). The movie failed to impress, but it's director spoke to ComicBook about about one key way it could have improved: letting Reynolds work on the script. As he put it:
Look, Ryan’s terrific. We actually had a very good time making the movie. It was a tough one to make, and he and Blake Lively were great to work with. He’s always such a witty guy, you know — I think I said this to another writer — I wish he’d written the script! I think he would have done a great job
Honestly, this really could have worked in my opinion. Green Lantern was a pretty standard action movie, but lacked both the comedic chops and the emotional core that has made the Deadpool franchise such a success. If Reynolds had a bit more creative control of the 2011 blockbuster, perhaps the two projects would have felt more similar.
Of course, the lack of R-rated humor wasn't the only issue that Green Lantern had going against it when it hit theaters over a decade ago. The main issue is arguably that the story simply wasn't all that compelling. Instead it felt like the movie was a paint-by-numbers superhero origin story. And relying on visual effects offered a challenge for the movie's action sequences.
With this in mind, fans are definitely curious about how the Green Lantern Corps. will be tackled in the upcoming DC movies and TV shows. The first slate of projects, titled Gods and Monsters, offers a number of opportunities for GLs to join the fray. That includes the cast of James Gunn's Superman, with Nathan Fillion playing Lantern bad boy Guy Gardner. There's also a Lanterns TV show in the works.
Ryan Reynolds got to find his superhero home as Deadpool, but he definitely gave a spirited performance in Green Lantern. He's made countless jokes about that ill-fated DC movie over the years, including Deadpool 2's wild credits sequence. In this time-traveling scene, Wade Wilson goes back in time to kill Ryan Reynolds before he can sign on to play Hal Jordan.
Following Deadpool 3, fans are wondering which upcoming Marvel movies Ryan Reynolds might pop up in next, with the most popular fan theory being Avengers: Doomsday. We'll just have to wait for more information about what comes next for both him and the Green Lantern franchise.
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