The problem isn’t that Michael Goldenberg and Martin Campbell are talented creators in their own right, it’s that Warner Bros. hired the wrong people to oversee a superhero movie. The studio decision stifled all the enthusiasm the original team brought to the project, and the lack of passion is evident in the final cut. The cartoonish CG suits worn by members of the Green Lantern Corps feel like Warner Bros. throwing a coin at the wall and seeing what’s sticking out, according to Ryan Reynolds. Told Variation:
“There were so many people spending a lot of money, and when there was a problem, instead of saying, ‘Okay, let’s stop spending it on special effects and think about character. How do we change this big show thing – this isn’t working’ at all – with something character-based?’ and that never – the thought to do that was never there. And to their credit, it’s a very old-fashioned view of things. It’s just ‘Let’s keep going through this’. And that – it didn’t work out.”
“Green Lantern” was a casualty of unscrupulous studio spending, an extreme compensation for the lack of fully developed vision. Warner Bros. suffered for his own mistakes, lose an estimated $75 million when the movie only grossed $220 million at the box office against a $200 million budget (and that doesn’t even include all the promotional links). Ironically, a superhero whose strength was based on will and courage was the victim of a studio that played him too safe.