HBO Max's upcoming Green Lantern TV series has a lot of expectations riding on it, and here's how they can avoid making the same mistakes as the 2011 movie. The Ryan Reynolds-led superhero blockbuster was a critical and commercial disaster, grossing only $219 million on a budget of $200 million. There were dozens of factors contributing to the movie's poor reception, including the poorly utilized CGI, uneven screenplay, and half-baked characterizations. Despite being a point of praise in the film, Ryan Reynolds himself has openly voiced his displeasure with it in recent years, culminating in a Deadpool 2 post-credits scene where the Merc with the Mouth travels back and time and kills the actor before he can accept the role.
Warner Bros. has been trying to figure out how to make Green Lantern work in live-action ever since the much maligned flop, including reports of a film reboot as far back as 2014. However, it wasn't until very recently that fans began to hear more concrete rumblings about the character's future on-screen, which involves a TV show from Geoff Johns and Arrowverse creator Greg Berlanti. While Berlanti is listed as a writer on the 2011 film, his script draft was totally rewritten by Michael Goldenberg into the final result seen in theaters.
While there are some who are worried about the prospect of another live-action foray into the Green Lantern mythos, comic book fans are undeniably excited by the news. And while the character isn't exactly as popular as DC's Trinity, there's a lot of appeal to the Green Lantern Corps as a whole that the TV series needs to tap into in order to be successful.
Don't Start With Parallax
While it can be admired how quickly the screenwriters wanted to tackle the big bad on-screen, having Parallax be the first villain Hal Jordan faced was one of the worst mistakes the creative team behind the film could have made. The Green Lantern villain was condensed from the intergalactic fear-based parasite he's known as in the comics, to a basic and poorly designed CGI villain that Jordan defeats all too easily in the movie's third act. This decision was a huge point of contention for comic book fans, and drew a lot of negative comparisons to Fox's depiction of Galactus in the final act of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Parallax's history within the comics is much richer and layered than in the film. In the source material, he's the avatar of fear on the emotional spectrum, spending eons traveling from planet to planet and forcing them to destroy themselves out of paranoia. Eventually captured and trapped in the Central Power Battery by the Guardians of the Universe, Parallax used his abilities to manipulate Hal Jordan for years, preying on his fear and self-doubt. The final straw came in the Emerald Twilight storyline, which saw Jordan's home of Coast City destroyed by Cyborg Superman. With Hal enraged and vulnerable, Parallax was able to take control of Jordan's body and turn him into one of the most dangerous villains the DC Universe ever faced.
Hal Jordan eventually died and returned, in control of his body, but the events remained one of the most crucial and shocking character transformations in all of comic book history. Reducing Parallax to an origin-story villain de-fangs one of the most powerful villains in comics, and also robs the character of Hal Jordan of so much storytelling potential. There are dozens of smaller-scale Green Lantern villains that the television series could start with, including the Manhunters, that would make for a more satisfying experience while also saving Parallax for an epic debut.
Green Lantern's Action Should Be Imaginative
One of the biggest draws of the many different Green Lantern characters is the nature of their power. Because of the fact that the iconic Power Ring draws its energy from the willpower of its user, the Green Lantern Corps is only limited by the extent of their imagination. This makes them some of the most unique and inventive superheroes in all of comics, something that DC has used to great effect in the source material.
However, the Green Lantern movie fumbled the ball on this in a massive way. Hal never truly uses his Power Ring in any dynamic way, mostly resorting to cliched constructs such as fighter jets and catapults. This showcases a lack of imagination on the part of the creative team and, ironically, the biggest weakness of a Lantern. Depending on the kind of production budget that Warner Bros. grants the Green Lantern TV show, the fight sequences should be bombastic and dynamic, with a wide range of constructs and inventive usage of the Lanterns Power Rings.
The Green Lantern Show Should Stay Off Earth
Something that content in the DCEU has failed at doing is showing off the wide variety of exciting locations in the DC Universe. Most of the action has taken place on Earth, and while we see some variety with the likes of Wonder Woman and Shazam, for the most part it's all taken place in major cities such as Gotham and Metropolis. This gets stale after awhile, and it's hard to deny that a big reason for Marvel's success with the MCU is that they aren't afraid to show off different locations such as Knowhere and Asgard.
The Green Lanterns of Earth, such as Hal Jordan and John Stewart, are obviously from Earth, but they're tasked with protecting an entire sector of the galaxy. This means that they frequently find themselves in exotic locales and planets never before seen, with totally unique alien lifeforms. This is a market that DC needs to explore, and the Green Lantern television series could be the perfect opportunity to show this. DC is filled to the brim with bizarre and surrealistic planets and alien creatures, most of which have never even been heard of by the general audience. While Marvel mostly uses the Guardians of the Galaxy films to explore space, DC could beat them at their own game by using the Green Lanterns to show off some truly inventive corners of their universe.
Show Off The Green Lantern Corps
Despite a montage sequence on Oa featuring Hal Jordan meeting multiple fan favorite Lanterns, the 2011 movie never truly captured the Space Cop aspect of the lore, instead primarily focusing on Hal Jordan as a superhero. While the TV show seems to be trying to reconcile this by following multiple different Lanterns from Earth, they have to go bigger than this. One of the coolest aspects of the Green Lantern Corps as a concept is the fact that they're essentially a massive law enforcement agency, but for the entire galaxy. There are so many different members of the organization from all across the vestiges of space.
This is something that the show absolutely has to lean into. Aside from just using the Earth-based Lanterns, the TV series needs to show off the minor characters present within the Corps. Lanterns such as Killowag and Tomar-Re can flourish in a serialized setting where they can receive real characterization, while fan-favorites such as Bzzd and Mogo the Living Planet can make appearances throughout. The beauty of the Green Lantern Corps is the fact that it's a massive family, a major theme of the comics, and one of the many aspects that the show should take advantage of if it wants to be successful.