Ryan Reynolds' Notorious Sci-Fi Flop Is One Of HBO Max's Biggest Streaming Hits

Warner Bros.

"Lanterns" might be DC's riskiest bet yet, but it's one that seems to be paying off. The HBO Max series is a cross between "True Detective" and "Watchmen," which has so far proved to be a winning formula. The show debuted to excellent reviews, earning a 94% critic score and "certified fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That is probably the only thing that could have revived interest in the infamously-awful 2011 "Green Lantern" movie, which has suddenly risen from the dead to enter HBO Max's top charts.

Ryan Reynolds' "Green Lantern" went down as one of the most notorious missteps in comic book movie history. Reynolds himself has spoken about what caused "Green Lantern" to bomb at the box office, blaming a focus on special effects over story. Indeed, the film barely made more than what it cost to produce back in 2011, bringing in just $237.2 million at the box office on a $200 million budget. What's more, it was eviscerated by critics, who collectively bestowed a 25% Rotten Tomatoes critic score on the film and attacked everything from its writing to the way in which it somehow managed to be both over-stuffed with CGI yet as bland as any superhero movie has ever been.

Ever since, the film has been little more than a punch line. Now, however, as streaming viewership tracker FlixPatrol proves, "Green Lantern" is enjoying a "Lanterns"-induced renaissance on HBO Max, where it has currently been in the top movie charts for more than a week.

Warner Bros.

It's early days, but "Lanterns" looks to have finally given this storied comic book hero a worthy adaptation. The show puts Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre's John Stewart in a somewhat grounded (for a series about an intergalactic police force) story wherein they're tasked with solving a mystery in small town Nebraska. By comparison, "Green Lantern" allowed Ryan Reynolds to joke his way through 123 minutes of less than convincing CGI nonsense in what might just be one of the worst comic book movies of all time.

That doesn't seem to have stopped HBO Max users from streaming the film in earnest, however. Per Flixpatrol, "Green Lantern" has now been in the United States movie charts for more than a week, hitting the number eight spot on August 21, 2026 (following the August 16 debut of "Lanterns"), before falling to number 10 as of August 25. But Reynolds' hero appears to be sticking around, as the movie has since climbed back to the number seven spot as of August 27, suggesting the "Lanterns" boost won't be short-lived.

On top of that, "Green Lantern" has charted in countries around the world, even hitting number one in the United Kingdom and Sweden. Aside from "Lanterns" boosting the film's resurgence, perhaps fans are simply curious to see whether the movie is as bad as they remember. Or maybe a new generation of fans are discovering the film for the first time. Regardless, "Green Lantern" is making an unlikely comeback thanks to the HBO Max series.

HBO

"Green Lantern" director Martin Campbell believes Ryan Reynolds could have saved the movie with one move, but it seems all it really needed was "Lanterns." Following the success of the show, on top of charting stateside, "Green Lantern" has also managed to crack the overall HBO Max charts in several other countries, including Estonia, Iceland, and Ukraine. In addition, the movie has been charting for more than a week in multiple places around the world, which means this is more than just a brief resurgence.

Just how long it will stick around remains unclear, but it's interesting to see just how popular the movie has become considering how truly hated it is. Sure, "Lanterns" is doing well, but Reynolds' ill-fated superhero movie was full of things that made no sense and seems as though it would need a heck of a lot more than a TV show to receive any kind of reprieve. Not that streaming audiences are the most discerning, but still.

That said, none of this will likely be enough to prompt a full-scale critical reappraisal of "Green Lantern." The film really was a blunder that failed to do any sort of justice to its source material. Now that James Gunn is running DC Studios, though, that same source material has finally been given a solid adaptation that is, frankly, much more worthy of your attention than Reynolds' film.