Box Office Bomb: Despite having a strong opening weekend, the box office gross ultimately tanked. Budget, $225 million (plus another $100 million for marketing, creating a $325 million threshold just to meet the budget and a likely $650 million target to break even). Box office, $219,851,172.
Ryan Reynolds indicates that he does not consider making the film a positive experience despite meeting his future wife Blake Lively on the set. In 2016, his Wade Wilson was strangely adamant that his costume not be green or animated, and Deadpool 2 featured Deadpool killing the past version of Ryan Reynolds who approved of the script for Green Lantern. However, he gave it a reevaluation and found it was better than he had intially judged.
Meanwhile, Martin Campbell heavily criticized the studio for hacking the film to pieces during the editing process, which he claims resulted in the omission or alteration of numerous elements which would have made for a stronger film.
Even Warner Bros. themselves would come to mock the movie. Teen Titans Go! To the Moviesfeatures a group of famous superheroes happily sharing their movie successes. However, a John Stewart Green Lantern excitedly mentions that his franchise once had a movie, before pausing and awkwardly mentioning, "But we don't talk about that anymore". (Warner Brothers to their credit even put this line quite prominently in the trailer, demonstrating that even they agree with the public rejection of the GL movie).
Averted with Mark Strong. Despite the film's failure, he has said he enjoyed the experience and would be open to playing Sinestro again in the DC Extended Universe. Strong's loyalty would be eventually rewarded by a villain role in Shazam as Doctor Sivana.
This film was going to launch the DC Extended Universe until its horrible reception from fans. This certainly helps explain its only containing the barest hints of foreshadowing for Sinestro, as well as Amanda Waller showing up despite having no impact on the story.
Superman made a cameo in an early script. Writer Marc Guggenheim hoped Tom Welling would do it, implying the movie would be set in the same universe as Smallville.
Executive Meddling: Allegedly, but if you have seen the movie it does seem like many scenes were trimmed or cut, and it is known that some scenes were re-shot after production wrapped up. There is an extended version that adds a few minutes, but still leaves out a lot according to at least one source.
One thing I feel needs mentioning: this is not Martin Campbell’s cut of the film, but the studio’s. I live in New Orleans where it was shot, I read the shooting script, all of which was painstakingly filmed with intense research, and all of that was left on the cutting room floor — a sort of combination of what happened to Daredevil and Watchmen, respectively — character development sacrificed for CG, scenes made irrelevant by removing their setup. The movie in the theater starts with an explanation of mythos that is made redundant by the more natural, scripted questions from Hal when he gets the ring. Ten minutes of childhood Hal, Carol, and Hector that sets up Hal’s first ring construct is reduced to an awkwardly placed flashback in the middle of another scene. The training with the ring is almost completely excised except for one minor scene. Most appallingly, the ending completely deletes the fact that Kilowog, Sinestro, and Toma-Re arrive at the end and help Hal defeat Parallax. Not to mention Parallax was supposed to be a 3rd act reveal after we spend the film worried about Hammond going evil, not the main villain for the entire film. I sincerely hope we get a director’s cut or at least all the deleted scenes on the video release.
Hostility on the Set: Ryan Reynolds and Martin Campbell clashed repeatedly on set. Campbell has stated in interviews that his first and only choice for the lead was Bradley Cooper. However, the studio was not willing to make an offer to him and ultimately cast Reynolds behind Campbell's back. This lead to an uncomfortable experience on set for Reynolds whose performance was constantly critiqued by Campbell who made him do many takes. Reynolds has stated in an interview with Variety that the film's failure was a huge relief as he had such an unpleasant experience and "dreaded doing it again."
Saved from Development Hell: Warner Bros. had been trying to bring this movie to life for a decade before production truly began. It got repeatedly retooled and passed on by everyone from Kevin Smith (during the production of the unmade Superman Lives), to Corey Reynolds (who pitched an entire trilogy based on John Stewart). It took until 2008 for the film to get off the ground with Greg Berlanti directing. Even then, he would later be fired and replaced with Martin Campbell.
Reynolds, who started his career with the TV series Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, transitioned into film by portraying the titular Van Wilder, which became a popular box office hit despite negative reviews from critics. Though the bulk of his following films (Blade: Trinity, The Amityville Horror (2005), Just Friends, Smokin' Aces, The Proposal, etc.) also got a mixed critical reception, their stellar performance at the box office and popularity with audiences made Reynolds a superstar. It also made his more critically appreciated work like Buried further stand out, while his turn as Wade Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine before that film's final act was praised as a possibly good rendition killed by bad writing. However, studios' faith in Reynolds faltered when Green Lantern failed big time. After R.I.P.D. and Turbo bombed upon release on the same weekend in 2013, many folks spent some years convinced Reynolds shouldn't headline any major films. Luckily, performing a more comic-accurate Wade Wilson/Deadpool for a couple of CGI tests won fan acclaim and heavy attention. This eventually resulted in him starring in an actual Deadpool film, which broke many box office records upon release in February 2016. Among the records Deadpool blew away included the largest opening weekends in Fox's history as well as for an R-rated film.
Lively's debut role was in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (which she eventually reprised for its sequel), before she truly became a household name with Gossip Girl. Though The Town seemed to mark her shift from another Teen Idol to a serious actress, the failure of Green Lantern temporarily short-circuited her potential and put her career at deep risk. When Lively's films followingGreen Lantern underperformed too, she took a hiatus in 2012 to focus on making a lifestyle brand called Preserve. She resumed acting after Preserve folded within a year and soon enjoyed a comeback: with The Age of Adaline, The Shallows, and A Simple Favor. Then in early 2020 she headlined The Rhythm Section, which got a tepid reception and became a massiveBox Office Bomb that only raked up $6 million on a budget of around $50 million. It ended up pulled out of nearly 3,000 theaters by its third weekend, although COVID-19 definitely played a part as well.
Stillborn Franchise: Sequels were greenlit before the movie came out, with the intention of starting the DC Extended Universe with this film. Suffice to say, they didn't go anywhere when the film bombed and dealt a serious setback to those plans, and the Green Lantern wouldn't star in his own movie again, with the DCEU not starting for another five years, well after Marvel fully took hold of the market (said universe doesn't include The Dark Knight Trilogy; it was rebooted a third time for the DCEU).
Throw It In!: Carol's line "I've seen you naked! You think I wouldn't recognize you because you covered your cheekbones?!" was an ad-lib.
Troubled Production: After years in Development Hell, the film was jump-started once Warner Bros. (sister company to DC Comics) saw Marvel create their own movie studio with an ambitious plan and a succesful first step, and decided to also start their own Shared Universe of DC adaptations with a "lesser" character akin to Iron Man. The first signs were positive, with a script by Greg Berlanti (who went on to helm the Arrowverse on television) and comic book writers Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim; comics fan Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan; and director Martin Campbell, who helmed two successful James Bond revivals. But then Executive Meddling and trying at all costs to have the movie by 2011 (when Marvel would release Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, and one year before the heroes team-up in The Avengers) started to bring things down. The studio felt the script was too complicated and ordered rewrites, that made the shooting schedule even more tight. Casting continued into shooting, and while filming, Reynolds suffered a shoulder injury which added further delays. Then during post-production the studio basically froze Campbell out of the editing process, cutting large chunks of the movie in detriment of the narrative, and the special effects teams had to work overtime, ballooning the budget even further. Green Lantern ultimately came out to scathing reviews and public apathy, struggling to pass $100 million dollars domestically and barely covering the $200 million budget worldwide. The plans for it to eventually lead into a Justice League were ditched, and instead WB decided to start the DC Extended Universe with the tried-and-true Superman in 2013's Man of Steel.
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