Ryan Reynolds' Green Lantern Movie Was Supposed To Include A DC Superhero Cameo

The early 2010s were an interesting time for the DC universe on screen. It was largely a period of transition. Warner Bros. experienced incredible success with Christopher Nolan's $1 billion smash Oscar-winning hit "The Dark Knight," while other projects were coming together behind the scenes. On the other side of the street, Marvel was putting together a full shared universe of films that would culminate in 2012's "The Avengers." Comic book crossovers were becoming all the rage. DC explored a pretty major crossover as Superman was, at one point, going to appear in 2011's "Green Lantern."

For those who may need a refresher, the film starred Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan long before he turned "Deadpool" into a smash R-rated hit. Martin Campbell ("Casino Royale") was in the director's chair. "Green Lantern" earned just $220 million at the global box office against a huge $200 million budget, failing to start a franchise against dreadful reviews. It was nothing shy of a total disaster.

Before the film hit theaters though, Warner Bros. was high on the concept of bringing the superhero to the big screen. In a 2010 pre-release interview with writer Marc Guggenheim (via Gizmodo), it was revealed that early versions of the script had a cameo by none other than the Man of Steel himself, Superman. Here's what he had to say about it at the time:

"Without trying very hard, you could probably find the leaked script on the internet. [The Superman cameo] is in the leaked script. It survived several drafts. Ultimately, it was cut for budgetary reasons. We took it out in one of our later drafts ... The Clark Kent cameo is still near and dear to my heart. I really wanted it to be in the movie ... You never know — it can still happen. If Tom Welling has a free hour or two, you never know."

Warner Bros.

Guggenheim makes a pointed joke there about Tom Welling, who played Clark Kent/Superman on the TV show "Smallville" for 10 seasons. At the time, Henry Cavill had not yet been cast as Superman for Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel," which would eventually hit theaters in 2013 and kick off the messy DC shared universe known as the DCEU. That effectively ended with the release of "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" in 2023, but that's another story entirely.

"There was just too many people spending too much money," Reynolds said reflecting why "Green Lantern" failed at the box office in a 2023 interview. "When there was a problem rather than say, 'Okay, let's stop spending on special effects and let's think about character. How do we replace this big spectacle thing — that isn't working at all — with something that's character based?'" Yet, for all of that money that was spent, getting someone to play Superman was deemed too pricey.

There was no definitive current movie version of Superman at that time. So it's unclear who would have suited up for this cameo. Around the time that "Green Lantern" was in development, "Mad Max: Fury Road" director George Miller was developing a film called "Justice League: Mortal" that would have featured DJ Cortana as Superman. That never came to pass.

Ultimately, had Superman appeared in the film, it only would have muddied the waters even more for DC and Warner Bros. "The Dark Knight Rises" came out in 2012 and ended Nolan's version of Batman, with Christian Bale retiring as the character. Yet, "Man of Steel" arrived a year later and one can't really have a DC universe without Batman. So, Snyder cast Ben Affleck for the role in "BvS," which was a controversial pick at the time. It was all messy. Having another Superman in the minds of audience members would have made it messier.

"Green Lantern" is available to rent on VOD, or you can grab a copy on Blu-ray/DVD via Amazon.