While DC has some of the most fascinating superhero characters in its universe, it at times fails to utilize them properly when it comes to the big screen. While some of their movies turn out to be masterpieces, others are mediocre, if not outright box office bombs. Green Lantern is one such film.

Even with an impressive budget, Green Lantern was riddled with flaws. Directed by Martin Campbell, the film stars Ryan Reynolds and Black Lively in the lead roles as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern and Carol Ferris. The film is about Hal, a reckless test pilot who is chosen by the powerful Ring to become the first human Green Lantern in order to defeat the powerful Parallax. Initially meant to kickstart the DC cinematic universe, the film was both a critical and commercial flop that failed to do justice to its comic book roots.

What are some of the factors that contributed to Green Lantern’s downfall? From budget cuts to competition from other movies to negative reviews, it seemed like the odds were stacked against Green Lantern. Even after more than a decade, DC is still having trouble as 2023 saw all four of their superhero movies: Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, Blue Beetle, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom all either massively underperform or outright flop. With that, look back on the reasons that Green Lantern failed and how it would impact the future of the DC Universe. As the saying goes: those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

Update January 5, 2024: This article has been updated by Amanda Minchin following more major DC box office bombs with additional material and analysis for what went wrong with Green Lantern back in 2011.

Green Lantern 2011 film adaptation of the DC character Hal Jordan, who is also known by his superhero persona Green Lantern. Release Date June 16, 2011 Rating PG-13 Runtime 105

Green Lantern Faced Massive Competition…

2011 was a popular year for superhero films. DC’s rival franchise, the MCU, had long before begun setting up its new characters’ stories in its own interconnected universe, leading up to the first Avengers movie in 2012. The success of Iron Man in 2008 laid the foundation for Marvel Studios, setting a high bar for upcoming superhero movies. Fans were more excited than ever about anything related to comic books.

Green Lantern faced intense competition for its June 2011 release date. Not only was it released between two MCU projects, Thor in May and Captain America: The First Avenger in July, but another Marvel superteam got the jump start on Green Lantern. X-Men: First Class opened in theaters on June 3, just two weeks before Green Lantern. X-Men: First Class might have been one of the lowest-grossing X-Men films, but it garnered strong reviews, and with $146 domestic and $352 million worldwide, it easily beat Green Lantern, which flopped with $116 million domestic and $237 million worldwide with a budget of almost $200 million.

The previously-released Thor was able to take a niche character, arguably more difficult to adapt than Green Lantern, and grossed $449 million worldwide. Then, a month after Green Lantern opened, Captain America: The First Avenger grossed $370 million by comparison.

It also wasn’t just superhero movies. Green Lantern faced competition on all sides. The following week after it opened, Cars 2 hit theaters. While Cars 2 was a critical and financial disappointment at the box office for Pixar, Cars 2 opened to $66 million, which was bigger than Green Lantern’s $53 million opening the weekend prior. Soon, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Horrible Bosses, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2, Crazy Stupid Love, Cowboys & Aliens, and The Smurfs took over theater screens. Green Lantern fell out of the top 10 within a month of its release.

… And Negative Reviews
Warner Bros.

So, what went wrong? The truth is that after the well-constructed CGI and the enticing storylines of Marvel, Green Lantern came as a disappointment for audiences and critics alike. The 2011 film received a low 26% Rotten Tomatoes rating. While the bulk of criticism received was for the film’s messed-up CGI, critics also pointed out its weak script, casting, poorly thought-out story, and backseat character development.

There’s a good reason behind this. According to Reynolds, even though the team worked hard on Green Lantern, the film simply didn’t know where it stood. The film lacked an obvious direction, and the story was not streamlined as a result. Reportedly there was conflict behind the set between Reynolds and director Martin Campbell, who did not want Reynolds in the lead role and was forced to include him by the studio.

Related: The Biggest Superhero Movie Bombs, Ranked by Box Office Gross

Campbell also revealed studio interference as they cut a major action scene in an attempt to reduce the budget. The idea was to gather the four Green Lanterns (Hal Jordan, Sinestro, Kilogwag, and Tomar-Ra) together to take on a Parallax. Campbell called his version of this The Magnificent Seven… or, in this case, The Magnificent Four. It was clear the movie had a lot of cooks in the kitchen.

So, why did the film do so poorly at the box office? The truth is a combination of things. In short, the movie failed in CGI, story, casting, and chronology.

Green Lantern’s Budget Led To Unpolished CGI
Warner Bros.

A sticking point for many fans and moviegoers alike was the CGI effects used throughout the film. Superhero films, by default, tend to spend a lot of money on CGI and special effects to create artificial yet real-looking characters, environments, and powers. When there is a cut in the budget, this often results in less time on hand to complete the project. This inevitably compromises the quality of the film.

This is exactly what happened with Green Lantern. Campbell confessed that there were a lot of meetings in the last few weeks of preproduction, during which they discussed cutting down on budget and were looking for ways to do it. According to reports, when the film was nearing its release, the visual effects work still wasn’t completed. Warner Bros. reportedly added $9 million more to the budget in order to hire some new VFX houses. These companies faced strict deadlines in order to complete the film with improved effects. While a $200 million budget is nothing to sneeze at, the last-minute dash for CGI made many of the effects look rushed and fake.

Related: Movies With Poorly Aged CGI

One of the victims of this was Green Lantern’s costume. Made up of energy from the Rings, it was never intended to look like the average spandex super suit.

Said Reynolds of the suit,

“It has to be virtual rather than spandex. This is a suit from an alien planet. It’s not ‘The Dark Knight’ – I don’t put the suit on and my voice drops several octaves. The suit is powered specifically on [Hal’s] will, his emotion, his creativity and his imagination…. Everything Hal creates are images from his childhood. Or things fueled specifically from his own mind.”

Unfortunately, the resulting rush job was bulky and unrealistic, with a weird green color that seemed painted over Hal’s eyes. It also did not help that the studio rushed out a teaser trailer to be released with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1.While the idea was to generate excitement, it was clear that it had the opposite effect as it put the movie on a bad foot with audiences as jokes about the suit looking fake were all anyone could talk about leading up to the movie. When push came to shove, there was a distinct misappropriation of funds as the budget fluctuated. Reynolds has agreed that more attention should have been paid to character development over special effects.

Green Lantern’s Story Was Unpolished
Warner Bros.

Back in 2011, not many audiences were familiar with the backstory of Green Lantern. Green Lantern had a good comic to build a movie off of, Green Lantern: Secret Origins, which the movie did use the loose skeleton of. Yet the film speed rushes through a lot of material, introducing the history of the Green Lantern Corp and their main villain, Parallax, in a brief and somewhat confusing monologue. The movie then rushes through many major beats in the comics, which results in a jumbled mess.

In contrast, that same year, Thor also introduced a whole host of new mythology to audiences but grounded it in a character-centric way. DC actually would crack the code of interesting a lot of mythology and a whole new world to audiences with over-the-top visuals with Aquaman, but that film made sure to pepper it throughout the story and keep the focus centered on the human story of Arthur Curry being a child of two worlds.

Combine that with how generic the story was. Hal Jordan felt like the studio was trying to copy Tony Stark. The introduction of Amanda Waller (Angela Bassett) was a cheap way to copy the Nick Fury tease at the end of Iron Man. Featuring a cloud villain felt similar to Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and the “friendship” between Hal Jordan and Hector Hammond, both being in love with Carol Ferris, felt like a copy of the love triangle between Peter Parker, Mary Jane, and Harry Osborn in the Spider-Man trilogy. Green Lantern felt like a generic copy of a superhero film, something DC would do again over a decade later with Black Adam. Green Lantern is a fascinating case studio looking at what trends were popular in superhero movies in the 2000s, while Black Adam is what was popular in the 2010s.

Audiences Were Confused To Why Green Lantern Was White
Warner Bros.

One aspect that can’t be ignored is that to many audiences, particularly young kids and teenagers, who were the primary demographic for a big blockbuster, they were most familiar with the John Stewart incarnation of Green Lantern thanks to animated series like Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. While Hal Jordan is the most famous Green Lantern in comics, the animated series have a wider reach in terms of general audiences, so they help shape public perception of the characters.

Many audiences were likely confused as to why a character they associated with being Black was now played by Ryan Reynolds. It is unlikely this turned a lot of people off, as casting Black actors in traditionally white roles and supposed “boycotts” don’t have any real impact, but it certainly made audiences think they were not doing a proper adaptation of the character.

The Impact of Green Lantern
Warner Bros.

While Green Lantern was a box-office disappointment, it had major impacts that are still being felt today. DC and Warner Bros. scrapped their plans to make Green Lantern the start of their shared universe and instead shifted it to the in-development Superman reboot from Christopher Nolan, which would become Man of Steel. Due to the poor box office reaction of Green Lantern, the character was notably absent from the DCEU. While they announced a Green Lantern Corp. movie that they wanted to release in 2020, progress was never made on it. When it came time to do Justice League as a film, Green Lantern was nowhere to be seen despite being a popular character commonly associated with the team.

Warner Bros. also had Green Lantern: The Animated Series, set to air on Cartoon Network in November 2011, assuming the movie would be a big hit and cash in on it. Yet after the film flopped, Cartoon Network quickly abandoned the show, and it was canceled after only one season. In 2011, DC launched The New 52 which was a major reboot of their comics line. The idea was to reset everything so new fans could come on board, but editorially, they notably kept the continuity of Batman and Green Lantern, as Batman was seen as the most popular DC hero, while Green Lantern wanted all the material to still be in demand for when the movie came out. Shortly after, Green Lantern’s place in the DC Comics universe was minimalized.

Obviously, Green Lantern flopping cleared up Ryan Reynolds from his commitment and allowed him to make Deadpool. Deadpool became the biggest hit in the X-Men film franchise and is now set to join the MCU with Deadpool 3. Both the X-Men film series and MCU destroyed Reynolds’s Green Lantern film, and now he is a part of both.

In a comically sad twist of fate, DC found themselves in a similar mess to Green Lantern in 2023. The Flash was released to theaters, and like Green Lantern, it was a film based on a popular Silver Age reimaging of a DC character. Both films had troubled productions and opened in theaters on almost the exact same date (Green Lantern was June 17th while The Flash was June 16th), and both went on to become legendary box office bombs. Both opened to just barely above $55 million, were criticized for their CGI, and both had similar grosses. Green Lantern actually did better than The Flash domestically as The Flash only brought in $108 million while Green Lantern pulled through with $116, but The Flash was able to beat it worldwide as it grossed $270 million against Green Lantern’s $237 million. Yet, with the price of inflation, The Flash actually did worse than Green Lantern.

Green Lantern is finally set to get a big push as part of James Gunn’s new DCU. Lanterns is a Max streaming series that will focus on Hal Jordan and John Stewart. Meanwhile, the Guy Gardner version of the character will be played by Nathan Fillion in Superman: Legacy. The blackest night appears to be behind Green Lantern, and his brightest days are soon to be ahead of him.

Stream Green Lantern on Max

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