Green Lantern Director Reveals One of His Biggest Regrets of the Ryan Reynolds Project

Filmmaker Martin Campbell was candid about his experience directing Green Lantern in an interview with ComicBook this week. Campbell wasn’t shy about his disappointment in the reception the movie got, but he said he’s also not bitter about the jokes people crack about it these days. He even hinted at what he wishes he had done differently in hindsight. For one thing, he wishes the “very witty” Ryan Reynolds had worked on the script, and for another, he wishes he’d been able to tie the antagonistic forces of the story together more strongly. Campbell suggested that the connection between Hector Hammond and Parallax should have come around at the climax of the movie.

Campbell is currently promoting his new movie Cleaner, which hits theaters on February 21st, but in an interview with ComicBook he naturally fielded questions about his time on Green Lantern. The director said that he has seen all of Reynolds’ wisecracks about Green Lantern in the Deadpool movies, but he hasn’t talked to the actor about it privately.

“Look, Ryan’s terrific,” he said. “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.”

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Looking back on the movie, Campbell seemed to say that he wished he’d been able to bind Parallax and Hammond together more closely in the story, noting, “After all, Parallax was really a cloud with a face on it, right?” By contrast, Hector Hammond started out as a human, and actor Peter Sarsgaard was able to give a more expressive performance than any CGI cloud could manage.

“You sort of somehow want that character to be related to the villain of the piece, you know,” he said. “They should all interconnect somehow, and it didn’t in the script, but all the characters are very present in the comics — Sinestro, Kilowog, all the… But, at the end of the day, it failed, which I was very sad about, but there you go. That’s life.”

When Green Lantern was released in 2011, it was a common criticism that the faceless, disembodied villain Parallax detracted from the story. However, that being is actually connected to Hector’s power. In the film, Hector is a scientist given access to the corpse of the extraterrestrial Abin Sur for an autopsy. A small piece of Parallax’s power is contained within Abin Sur, but it jumps to Hector, who undergoes a radical transformation. He now has psychic powers, but his body is contorted and his mental health is badly damaged by the change.

Still, in the end Hammond is not an avatar of Parallax and their stories are not really connected. Hammond loses a couple of showdowns with Green Lantern before Parallax arrives on earth to drain his life force, not even leaving him alive for a potential sequel. It’s easy to see how a few tweaks might have helped tie a bow on the story in the end, as Campbell suggests.

For those interested in seeing for themselves, Green Lantern is streaming now on Netflix and Max in the U.S. Campbell’s new movie, Cleaner hits theaters on Friday, February 21st.

Cleaner is described, “Set in present-day London, a group of radical activists take over an energy company’s annual gala, seizing 300 hostages in order to expose the corruption of the hosts. Their just cause is hijacked by an extremist within their ranks, who is ready to murder everyone in the building to send his anarchic message to the world. It falls to an ex-soldier turned window cleaner, played by Daisy Ridley, suspended 50 stories up on the outside of the building, to save those trapped inside, including her younger brother.”