Ryan Reynolds Says No To ‘Green Lantern’ But Yes To ‘Deadpool’

What to do with Ryan Reynolds? The poor guy barely catches a break. Just when it looks as though he could be catapulted into the stratosphere, his films just manage to be moderately successful. Perhaps part of the problem is that directors and studios see him as both the funnyman and the attractive leading man, which often leaves his characters as simply smug individuals. He’s been getting it right sometimes, with serious roles in BURIED and SAFE HOUSE, but what about his attempts at super heroics? After all, he has had three shots at the genre with Hannibal King in BLADE TRINITY, Wade Wilson in X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE and Hal Jordan in GREEN LANTERN. None of which were met with great acclaim.

But what has Reynolds got to say about returning as Hal Jordan a.k.a. GREEN LANTERN or Wade Wilson a.k.a. DEADPOOL? In a recent interview with Empire, he addressed both of these roles. First up is his thoughts on GREEN LANTERN, a film that is looking less likely to get a sequel, but the character could return in JUSTICE LEAGUE:

I saw how difficult it is to make that concept palatable and how confused it all can be when you don’t really know exactly where you’re going with it or you don’t really know how to access that world properly. That world comic book fans have been accessing for decades and fallingin love with. So at this point I have very little interest in joining that kind of world. [A] great script and a good director can always turn that around…I believe that Joss Whedon is the guy that just nails it and Christopher Nolan obviously nails it. So if they were gonna do it like that, it would be an interesting thing to do.

So not a definitive no then. GREEN LANTERN is my favourite superhero character, but the film was a complete mess in terms of story. Reynolds wasn’t terrible in the role, but the script certainly wanted to play up the comedic aspects of Jordan.

So what about the long gestating DEADPOOL solo movie? For years Reynolds was touted for the part and he finally got his wish in X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE. Unfortunately, they completely destroyed the character and by the end nothing even resembling DEADPOOL could be seen.

I love Deadpool and there is a script that’s in development. But it’s so, so far into the R-rated zone… it’s a nearly NC-17 world and I just don’t know if the studio would ever risk their reputation doing it. We’ve been developing it and we would never wanna do it unless you could it that R-rated way, so…[The script has] got a similar tone [to ZOMBIELAND], almost. [Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick] wrote it and they developed it as well and, you know, it’s sitting there. You could do it for a pittance compared to the modern sort of epic scale superhero movies, but it’s about a guy who knows he’s in a movie and knows he’s in a comic book who is deeply mentally disturbed and hyper violent. And that’s tough to get by a studio.

And how would the solo outing tie into Wade Wilson’s previous appearance?

I don’t think you can [fit it within the Deadpool story from Wolverine], because that character would really sully that whole world. The script is one rewrite away from Deadpool jumping across the desk at the studio executive and attacking him… But I’ve always wanted to do the movie just if only because Deadpool would get to do his own movie trailer. So that’s a thing that we were dying to do and we would love to be a part of that. I don’t know how it would fit though, no. In the current iteration of the script, it doesn’t address Wolverine – though it does address Deadpool’s appearance in Wolverine. Deadpool was not happy with Deadpool in Wolverine. He has a sort of a WTF!? moment with that.

It’s clear which project Reynolds is more passionate about. I really hope we get to see a DEADPOOL movie at some point, as it will be that refreshing voice the genre needs.

Ryan Reynolds will mostly be heard and not seen this year, with vocal roles in THE CROODS and TURBO.

Source: Empire