Green Lantern director Martin Campbell has talked about his original planned ending for the DC Comics movie.
"The problem was I remember in the last six to eight weeks of pre-production, every day – and I mean every day, we had meetings about cutting the budget," he told Collider. "'We need to cut the budget. How are we going to cut the budget.' Every goddamn day."
He continued: "And I'd worked out a terrific ending for that movie. I remember I had this quite big office down in New Orleans, the production offices, and I plastered the walls with storyboards. It was like wallpaper everywhere for the ending of the movie, and they came in and said, 'We can't afford it. You have to cut it all.' So in the end they came up with that crap ending. However, having said that, I never should have done it, but I did it. I don't think I did a good job, so for me, for superhero movies, there are better people than me who ought to be doing those movies."
The ending of the movie saw Ryan Reynolds' Hal Jordan fight the big bad Parallax in space, who eventually falls into the sun and is killed. Campbell explained what his version would have involved instead: "To be honest, there was a battle in the streets between the four lanterns – between our heroes, Kilowog, Sinestro, and obviously Ryan Reynolds, and blah-blah – taking on a huge kind of monster that was taking over the city, and it was really The Magnificent Seven in a way, or The Magnificent Four. However, it did not come to pass, so there we are."
This isn't the first time Campbell has talked about making the movie. He recently compared the experience to helming films in the Bond franchise. "I shouldn't have done it. Because with something like Bond – I love Bond, and I watched every Bond film before I ever directed it," he said. "Superhero movies are not my cup of tea, and for that reason, I shouldn't have done it."
While Ryan Reynolds' version of Hal Jordan was short-lived, Warner Bros. is in the process of reviving Green Lantern in an HBO Max TV series, which will star Finn Wittrock as Guy Gardner. The Lanterns Alan Scott and Bree Jarta will also be appearing.
There's no release date for the Green Lantern TV show just yet, but in the meantime, check out how to watch DC movies in order to get up to speed on the DCEU.
