Green Lantern Director Admits He Never Should Have Made the Ryan Reynolds Movie

Following the massive success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, DC Comics and Warner Bros. delivered audiences the first live-action Green Lantern film in 2011, only for the complex sci-fi adventure to fall short with audiences and critics, with director Martin Campbell recently admitting he never should have gotten involved in the project in the first place. Recent years have seen star Ryan Reynolds be able to poke fun at the film and its various shortcomings, while finally sitting down to watch the film and live-tweet his reactions earlier this year, but the experience was much more disheartening from Campbell’s perspective.

“We’ll put it this way: I did have my cut. The point was, right at the beginning of the movie, there was a whole sequence where he’s an 11-year-old kid,” Campbell detailed to ScreenRant. “It’s how his father dies in the air crash, which was a really good sequence. But [the production head] at the time decided that he wanted the death of the father intercut with Hal plunging in the plane, and he saw these flashbacks come to him. That was something that I didn’t like very much.”

He continued, “But you know what? The film did not work, really. That’s the point, and I’m partly responsible for that. I shouldn’t have done it. Because with something like Bond — I love Bond, and I watched every Bond film before I ever directed it. Superhero movies are not my cup of tea, and for that reason, I shouldn’t have done it. But directors always have to carry the can for the failures. What do they say? Success has many fathers, failure has one. And that’s me.”

It made sense why Campbell would be hired for the experience, as he previously delivered audiences two different, all-new James Bond performers with Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye and Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. In this regard, Campbell was quite familiar with introducing audiences to new takes on beloved characters, but given his own admission that he doesn’t even like the genre, he’s clearly only one of many parties involved that had issues with the production.

Earlier this week, he also admitted that some of the biggest battles he’s ever had were with Warner Bros. executives while making the movie and that a sequel will only happen over his “dead body.”

HBO Max is currently developing a Green Lantern TV series with Finn Wittrock starring as Guy Gardner.

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