Ryan Reynolds: ‘Green Lantern’ flopped due to poor CGI budget

Ryan Reynolds evokes the “old school” thinking that partially led to the infamous “Green Lantern” box office bomb.

The “Free Guy” star detailed how it took years to “process” the debacle of the poorly reviewed 2011 superhero film, which barely made back its $200 million budget.

“Too many people spend too much money and when they’ve got a problem they’re like, ‘OK, let’s stop spending on special effects and think about the characters,'” Reynolds said at the Just For Laughs comedy festival at London’s O2. Arena (via The independent) alongside his former co-star Rob Delaney.

Reynolds continued, “It just never…the thinking was never there to do that. And to their credit, this is a very old fashioned approach to things. Just ‘Let’s continue to push our way through this’. And it didn’t work.”

The ‘Deadpool’ star added: ‘There were 185 people working on the film at the same time – they all had an amazing time, we loved the shoot. Actually shooting the movie was a lot of fun. But you know, sitting at that premiere and watching that… God, it’s hard. The words are “holy crap” and “no, no!” were words.

Reynolds continued: “It was crazy. It was a strange feeling. It wasn’t a feeling I wanted to repeat. So I spent the next few years owning as much as I could, it was the only way to process it.”

The star revealed in 2018 that he had never seen the “full final version” of “Green Lantern.” He later live-tweeted the film’s release in theaters in 2021, writing in part: “There’s a lot of punch in the film. They’re not always used in the right way… but they’re still… heavy hitters,” referring to Oscar nominee Angela Bassett and late star Michael Clarke Duncan.

Reynolds also added at the time (via People), “Hundreds of incredible crew and actors have done amazing work—and while it’s not perfect, it’s not a tragedy.”

“Green Lantern” was directed by Martin Campbell, who did not return to the superhero IP world after the film.

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