Starring in and producing one of the most successful superhero movies of all time has to be a great way to make up for past failures, and one can assume that Deadpool and Wolverine’s Avengers-topping billion-dollar box office went a long way in tamping down the stigma of Ryan Reynolds having also starred in one of the biggest flops of the modern era, Green Lantern. But it sounds like he still can’t avoid the DC flick coming up repeatedly in his daily life, and it’s not just from social media trolls.
As it turns out, while Green Lantern’s glaring sights and sounds didn’t win over general audiences when it hit theaters in 2011, it eventually did win the heart and mind of someone very important to the lead actor: his son. (As well as someone at CinemaBlend, though they’re clearly not as important to the celeb.) For a Q&A event for the Wall Street Journal’s Leadership Institute, Reynolds was asked about a noteworthy failure in his career, to which he shared this amusing anecdote:
Creatively speaking, it’s hard to say. Someone might say Green Lantern. You laugh, but my son, it’s his favorite movie, and he watches it every fucking day. Do you understand the work I’ve had to do to get to the place where I can just pass by that screen and not go, ‘Well, we could have [done that better]’?
Indeed, several people in the audience did start to laugh when he namechecked the ring-bearing DC hero, which was to be expected. That movie essentially squashed any and all future plans to give GL a bigger live-action presence, and not even the Arrowverse paid off on giving David Ramsey’s Diggle the moniker, despite fans begging for it at the time. Thankfully, he never stopped being a major player in DC’s various animated series and movies in the aftermath, and I can’t flipping wait for HBO’s Lanterns to give the character(s) due vindication. But that’s for another time.
While most of us are happy to keep our past downfalls mentally locked away for the long haul, Ryan Reynolds is clearly not so lucky. By all means, he likely feels a certain sense of pride and accomplishment by his son being so passionate about rewatching one of his movies. But there are probably a smattering of other projects that the actor would want to swap in its place, considering he Maybe not Buried or the Deadpool flicks yet, though, at least until the kid is older.
To that end, though, the Two Guys and a Girl vet talked just prior about learning how important it is that his and Blake Lively’s children see that side of their careers, since so much of what their young minds take in is all of the glitz, glory and success. Reynolds spoke to that ongoing worry, saying:
My kids: all they see is a winner. That’s the thing I worry about most with this ecosystem you’re talking about here. When I go outside, I get pats on the back and it’s a selfie parade, and I oblige everyone pretty much. And my kids only see that. So I’ve learned lately to make sure to talk about the failures, and how that is literally the base, an ingredient for everything else.
Maybe a little weird to have to use one of their favorite movies as an example of something that failed, but that lesson will no doubt make more sense as they get older.
Beyond that, Green Lantern helped Reynolds learn that good dialogue is as valuable as giant stunts, which possibly helped spark the desire to make Deadpool the quippiest, most dialogue-chomping character possible when those films were being put together. Although I guess one’s mileage will vary on whether that’s a good thing or not.
At least he wasn’t part of Team Bowl Cut like Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner, because that might have killed his entire career right there in 2014, and possibly could have doomed his relationship with Blake Lively before it started. Which would mean he never would have had a son who grew up to watch Green Lantern every day. Never underestimate the power of avoiding a bowl cut.
Fans can probably expect to see Deadpool showing up in Avengers: Doomsday more than they can expect to see Reynolds suiting up for James Gunn’s DCU. He already amusingly expressed his disinterest, reportedly telling James Gunn to “fuck off” when the filmmaker jokingly asked if he’d be up for it. I’d still expect some kind of on-screen reference to it, though.
Green Lantern is currently available to stream via HBO Max subscription.