It’s kind of forgotten now, but the first film in the current wave of DC Comics movies wasn’t Man of Steel, it was 2011’s Green Lantern, starring a pre-Deadpool Ryan Reynolds as fighter pilot turned space cop Hal Jordan. Despite being largely faithful to the character’s mythology, the movie was a complete and total flop. It bombed with critics and grossed just $220 million worldwide. (It cost $200 million to make before marketing.) Plans for a Green Lantern franchise were squashed and the DC movie universe was rebuilt starting with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. 

The man who directed Green Lantern was Martin Campbell, an experienced action filmmaker who’s made some of the most popular blockbusters of the last 30 years, including GoldenEyeThe Mask of Zorro, and Casino Royale. Campbell knows what he’s doing. He’s a talented guy. So what the heck happened with Green Lantern?

He didn’t say exactly, but he did address the movie multiple times in a recent Reddit AMA. Asked by one fan to name “the worst fight” he’d ever been in, Campbell replied “with the Warner executives, over Green Lantern.” He didn’t elaborate further, but when another Redditor asked if we might ever see a Green Lantern 2, he responded “over my dead body.” And the experience was apparently so bad, Campbell has sworn off making superhero movies altogether. When asked about other genres he might want to try beyond the world of action, he said he’d “love to work in a comedy” but as far as something for Marvel goes, “forget it I f—ed it up once, never again.”

DC has long given up any hopes of another Green Lantern movie. Instead, they’re now working on a new Green Lantern TV series for HBO Max; the show will supposedly span decades and feature multiple GLs, including Alan Scott and Guy Gardner. As for Martin Campbell, his latest film, The Protege, will be released in theaters on August 20. (If you want to read more about what went wrong with Green Lantern, we have an entire article about that very subject.)

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