If you use your creative freedom to make a movie in which you shoot yourself while reading the script of another movie, then chances are you probably hate that movie. And the chances are definitive if you are Ryan Reynolds and the movie is Green Lantern. The actor has made his disdain for the movie as he dunked it into a bottomless pit of jokes. While one can sign this off as classic Reynolds behavior, this roast session actually stems from a deeper place. With Green Lantern, the actor hoped to become a dependable action hero and lead a franchise in DC, only for the CGI to fail him terribly. But Reynolds may finally find some closure.

While DC may not have been thriving in the past years, it has managed to pick up after itself quite well since Green Lantern. But as it bids farewell to all that it used to be in favor of James Gunn’s DCU, it is revisiting the low lane again.

Ryan Reynolds finds soft padding in DC more than a decade after Green Lantern release

In 2011, DC released the Martin Cambell directorial starring Ryan Reynolds as the superhero who hates yellow, to make for one of the most embarrassing theatrical runs in DC. Especially against its whopping budget of $200 million. Green Lantern was so good of a failure that no one could touch this feat for more than a decade. But it seems like Barry Allen did not just go back in terms of time in Andy Muschietti’s The Flash as the movie is also suffering a setback at the box office. The movie has moved at a turtle-like pace to mark $100 Million on its 19th day of domestic run. A feat that even Green Lantern achieved before it. Albeit, just a few days before the clock struck three weeks.

Much like Green Lantern, The Flash was made on a budget of $200 Million with a reported $150 million splurged on marketing curtsy of Warner Bros. on marketing it. This soft padding for Reynolds has come at the cost of a lackluster farewell to the DCEU era.

The poor box office collection is not all that the two share. It becomes clear through analyzing The Flash and Green Lantern side by side that the recipe for disaster has not changed much from 2011 to 2023.

Why did The Flash and Green Lantern flop at the box office?

Given the passionate fanbase that follows it, whether the movie has flopped also remains an ongoing debate. However, it can be said without a hint of doubt that in terms of box office numbers and comparisons to other movies, both have terribly flopped. The Flash and Green Lantern had fans on their toes owing to A-list celebrities and directors involved. The Flash especially thrived on the stardom of its DC ancestors, such as Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton.

It also brought in Sasha Calle as Supergirl who emerged as the only star in the movie. But for all its stars, both movies trusted their CGI experts a bit too much. A few frames from Andy Muschietti’s The Flash were so neck-deep in CGI that they seemed to mirror Green Lantern in terms of the release date. Such heavy CGI in both movies masked the storyline that was supposed to be the hero.

Did you know that The Flash is meeting Ryan Reynolds’ Green Lantern at the bottom of DC’s pit? Let us know in the comments below.