Ryan Reynolds has recalled his horror at seeing Green Lantern for the first time at the premiere.
The actor reflected on what went so wrong with the 2011 flop that he co-starred in with his now-wife Blake Lively.
Directed by Martin Campbell, the film stars Reynolds as the DC superhero, and it went on to become one of the biggest box office bombs in cinema history. It grossed just $219m (£182m) from a $200m (£166m) budget, and received scatching reviews.
Since 2011, Reynolds has repeatedly acnowledged that the film was a disaster, and he has now revealed that he did this as “it was the only way to kind of process it”.
Speaking at the Just For Laughs comedy festival in London’s O2 Arena, Reynolds explained to Q&A host Rob Delaney, with whom he starred in 2021 film Free Guy, why Green Lantern failed so spectacularly.
“There was just too many people spending too much money and when there was a problem rather than say, ‘OK, let’s stop spending on special effects and let’s think about character’,” Reynolds said.
“That just never... the thinking was never there to do that,” he said, adding. “And to their credit, it’s a very old school way of looking at things. It’s just ‘Let’s just keep spending our way through this.’ And that was... it didn’t work.
“At the same time, there are 185 people that worked on that movie – they all had an amazing time, we loved shooting it. Truly, shooting the movie was a lot of fun. But, you know, sitting in that premiere, watching that... oh my God, it’s tough.”
Sharing his reaction, Reynolds said: “The words were ‘holy s***’ and ‘no, no!’
He continued: “It was crazy. It was an odd feeling. It was not a feeling I wanted to repeat. So I really spent the following years just owning as much as I could, it was the only way to kind of process it.”
Reynolds found box office success with 2016 film Deadpool and is seque two years later.
He’s currently working on a third fim in the franchise alongside Hugh Jackman who will reprise the role of X-Men character Wolverine.
