Ryan Reynolds Reflects on ‘Green Lantern’ Flop and What It Taught Him

Ryan Reynolds learned a valuable lesson from one of his most notable box office flops. Following months of anticipation and hopes that it could be a summer blockbuster hit, DC’s Green Lantern premiered in theaters on June 15, 2011, and had a disappointing opening weekend. Over the weeks that followed, the film barely broke even on its $200 million budget as it earned a dismal $219 million at the box office worldwide, according to The Numbers.

Nearly 15 years later, Reynolds, 49, admitted that, “creatively speaking,” some could call Green Lantern one of his career failures, but it served an important purpose — it made him realize that he needed to speak up for himself more on set.

“You know, that was a time in my life when I was ‘Yes, sir, no, sir. How high can I jump, sir?'” he explained during the Wall Street Journal’s CMO Council Summit on Nov. 18, per People. “You sit there, and you go, ‘I have really strong thoughts and opinions on a creative matter,’ and someone else on another movie, I remember, made a creative decision, and ‘I thought, well, that’s a nail in a coffin that I alone will lie in.'”

If anything, he pointed out that not speaking up when he had creative input only hurt him, because if a movie performed poorly with critics or at the box office, it was often the lead actor who took the blame.

“They don’t say ‘This producer’s movie flopped,’ or ‘This director’s [movie flopped].’ That’s me. So if I’m going to be on that headline, I’d like to be the architect of my own demise — or success.”

How ‘Green Lantern’ Changed Ryan Reynolds’ Life

While Green Lantern didn’t exactly rake in the big bucks or rack up high-profile award show nominations, a lot of good came out of that film for Reynolds when it comes to his personal life. He famously met his wife, Blake Lively, on set in 2010. The Gossip Girl actress, 38, played the role of Carol Ferris, the Vice President of Ferris Aircraft and Hal Jordan’s main love interest.

The next year, Reynolds and Lively began dating, and in 2012, they officially said, “I do.” They went on to welcome four children together — daughters James, 10, Inez, 9, and Betty, 6, and their son, Olin, 2, who just might be Green Lantern‘s biggest fan.

“You laugh, but my son, it’s his favorite movie, and he watches it every f—— day,” Reynolds quipped to the crowd at the summit earlier this month. “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 something to make it better]?'”

Although Reynolds’ flopped superhero movie didn’t become a blockbuster hit after all, the DCEU isn’t done with the Green Lantern comics and characters as a whole. Guy Gardner, played by Nathan Fillion, appeared in James Gunn’s Superman (2025), and HBO’s upcoming series Lanterns, which is produced by DC Studios and Warner Bros. Television, is expected to premiere some time in 2026.