Martin Campbell Reflects on ‘Green Lantern’ Flop: ‘I Was the Wrong Director’

Fourteen years after Green Lantern failed to ignite the box office, director Martin Campbell is opening up about what went wrong—and he’s not afraid to take the blame.

In a candid conversation with Variety, Campbell, best known for directing Casino Royale and The Mask of Zorro, admitted that tackling a superhero film wasn’t the right move for him. While promoting his latest thriller, Cleaner, he made it clear that his interest in making another comic book movie is now at “none whatsoever.”

“It didn’t do business, I think, for a number of reasons,” Campbell explained. “But the reason I did it was simply I’d never done one before. I think quite honestly, if you’re going to do a superhero movie, you have to be in that world a little bit. You have to be excited by it. You have to have a background where you are part of that world. And I wasn’t.”

Released in 2011, Green Lantern had all the makings of a blockbuster—Ryan Reynolds as the lead, Blake Lively as his love interest, and a hefty $200 million budget. Yet, it only managed to pull in $237 million worldwide, a disappointing return that sealed its fate as one of DC’s biggest misfires.

Campbell, who has previously said he was “the wrong director” for the film, elaborated on why the project struggled. “I read all the comics, and all the characters are true to them,” he noted. “But I don’t think the script was great. And Parallax, our villain, was just a cloud with a face on it—literally, that’s all it was.”

Despite the film’s issues, he had nothing but praise for its stars. “Ryan and Blake were wonderful to work with—both terrific,” he said. “But I think while all the characters were part of the story and true to the comics, the story itself was left wanting.”

Budget constraints also played a role in the film’s troubled production. Campbell revealed that the original ending was scrapped due to cost concerns. “I had a totally different ending to the movie, or at least the last third of it, all of which was scrapped in the interest of budget,” he recalled.

Even with all these setbacks, Campbell isn’t making excuses. “Listen, when you direct and people don’t like it, you suck it up,” he said. “I’m the director, so that’s my fault.”

While Green Lantern may have been a rare misfire in Campbell’s otherwise successful career, it did lead to something positive—Reynolds and Lively met on set, later marrying and becoming one of Hollywood’s favorite power couples. As for Campbell, he’s sticking to what he does best: crafting high-stakes thrillers rather than diving back into the superhero realm.

One thing’s for sure—he’s learned his lesson. “I made that film simply because I hadn’t done a superhero movie before,” he concluded. “And the film failed, as simple as that.”