Ryan Reynolds has been around in Hollywood for a long time at this point. The actor debuted in a Canadian teen drama series in the early ’90s before graduating to American film and television roles, plying his trade in everything from “Two Guys and a Girl” and “The X-Files” to movies like “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder” and “The Amityville Horror.” His increasing star power made him seem destined for a lead role in a big studio blockbuster, but when the time came, things didn’t go as planned. Reynolds was cast as Hal Jordan in the 2011 DC tentpole “Green Lantern,” which became one of the most notorious superhero movie flops ever.

Reynolds eventually bounced back, but his life would never be the same. “Green Lantern” bombed at the box office and it went down terribly with both audiences or critics, becoming such a notable misfire that it almost formed part of Reynolds’ personality for a while. He decided to own it rather than shy away from it, but the reality is he had no choice — there’s nowhere to hide in Hollywood. Of course, Reynolds is best known for playing Marvel’s Deadpool today. It’s become his career defining role, but his Hal Jordan experience arguably had a bigger impact on him. Here’s why Ryan Reynolds was never the same after “Green Lantern.”

Of course, not everything associated with “Green Lantern” is negative. In fact, perhaps the most important life change that resulted from Ryan Reynolds being in the film was a positive one. Though “Green Lantern” was panned, Reynolds met his future wife Blake Lively (who plays Hal Jordan’s love interest, Carol Ferris) on the set in 2010. Reynolds had previously been married to Marvel star Scarlett Johansson, with the couple officially divorcing in 2011. He got to know Lively as they worked together on “Green Lantern,” and the pair have even more chemistry off-screen than they did while on camera (not that sparks don’t fly between Hal and Carol).

Love was in the air in 2012 when Reynolds and Lively were married in a private ceremony in South Carolina, proving that their romantic entanglements lasted well beyond the “Green Lantern” end credits. The pair can often be seen poking fun at each other on social media (especially on their birthdays) and they have had four children together since tying the knot. This Hollywood power couple even has a rule that they don’t ever work simultaneously, a boundary that helps them maintain their marriage and remain available for their children. Speaking to Amber Tamblyn on the podcast “Further Ado,” Lively said: “When Ryan and I got together, we made a rule not to work at the same time, so that we could always prioritize our personal life. That takes working really hard when we’re not. Just like financial planning and sustaining that; it takes balance.”

“Green Lantern” set out to be an inspirational superhero blockbuster set within a viscerally fantastical world, but making that world a reality wasn’t a walk in the park. Even putting aside all the strangeness surrounding the purely CGI uniforms or the fact that Michael Clarke Duncan wasn’t cast as Kilowag until post-production, some elements surrounding “Green Lantern” didn’t sit right with its lead star. For Ryan Reynolds, it was frustrating that so much of Martin Campbell’s only superhero picture was focused on special effects rather than character-driven storytelling.

“You really need a visionary behind a movie like that, but it was the classic studio story,” Reynolds lamented to Empire in 2016 (via Cosmic Book News). In Reynolds’ mind, Warner Bros. was too focused on making something that would rival the still-growing Marvel Cinematic Universe, and that’s what ultimately killed the picture. As the actor noted again in a 2023 interview with Variety, that’s a very “old school” way to approach filmmaking that doesn’t quite work the same way anymore. On the bright side, his frustrations with the way “Green Lantern” was handled were mistakes he would later correct with “Deadpool,” which still manages to be a fairly character-driven piece despite its place in the greater X-Men (and now MCU) franchise.

Most DC fans were massively disappointed when “Green Lantern” was released. The film felt unevenly paced, relied too much on computer-generated spectacle, and never seemed to quite live up to the mythos. Comic book fans might sometimes be a bit overly critical, but even general audiences failed to be enraptured by Hal Jordan’s journey toward overcoming fear. Unfortunately, that sentiment was felt by the film’s star as well. “You know, sitting in that premiere, watching that, oh my God. It’s tough,” Ryan Reynolds admitted over a decade after “Green Lantern” hit theaters (via Variety).

“It was crazy. It was an odd feeling. It was not a feeling I wanted to repeat,” Reynolds continued. “So I really spent the following years just owning as much as I could, it was the only way to kind of process it.” Following the 2011 flop, Reynolds didn’t turn his back on comic book adaptations or science fiction spectacles, but instead continued to embrace them. Movies like “R.I.P.D.,” “Free Guy,” “The Adam Project,” and the “Deadpool” films all reinforce the idea that Reynolds himself was never the problem with “Green Lantern.” Done differently, and with a better plan in place, the film likely would have been a success.

After spending a decade mocking “Green Lantern,” Ryan Reynolds revisited the film for the first time in 2021, and the results weren’t quite what you’d think. While awaiting the drop of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” (and celebrating St. Patrick’s Day), Reynolds took to X (formerly Twitter) on March 17, 2021 with a “Lantern’s Light” cocktail to sit down and officially watch the film. In his rewatch thread, the actor praised Angela Bassett’s performance, criticized the way other actors were utilized, and noted that he still has his Green Lantern ring. By the end credits, he came to a conclusion fans might not have expected.

“Maybe it’s the Aviation Gin talking, but #GreenLantern was nothing to fear,” he tweeted. “Hundreds of incredible crew and cast members did amazing work — and while it’s not perfect, it ain’t a tragedy. Next time I won’t wait a decade to watch.” Only a year prior, the actor had warned folks away from even renting the film for $0.99, and, given its horrid Rotten Tomatoes scores (both critics and audiences trashed it), we’ve never questioned why. Still, there might be more glowing green gems in “Green Lantern” than immediately meets the eye, at least if Reynolds is to be believed.

The most life-changing thing that “Green Lantern” did for Ryan Reynolds was to open the door for him to leave DC for good in favor of Marvel. Though Reynolds had previously been attached to Deadpool before “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” in which he appeared as a very different version of Deadpool, it wasn’t until long after his first (failed) attempt to bring the character to life that the Merc With A Mouth was given a second chance on the big screen. “Green Lantern” definitely slowed the process, according to Reynolds. “Part of the reason ‘Deadpool’ wasn’t greenlit right away was certainly because of me,” the actor admitted to Variety in 2017. “If Robert Downey Jr. was playing it — I don’t know how much greener a light you can get to make a movie.”

On “Deadpool,” Reynolds wore as many hats as necessary to make sure that the character remained true to his Marvel Comics origins and was appealing to fans of the source material, unlike his tenure as a Green Lantern. When “Deadpool” became a huge success, it was vindication for the actor. “It’s really proof that literally anything can happen in Hollywood,” he said. Had it not been for the failure of “Green Lantern,” Reynolds may never have gotten the chance to play the character he was born to play in such an authentic way, so we should be grateful that things panned out the way they did.