Ryan Reynolds is the first person to hold his hands up and admit that 2011’s Green Lantern was a huge misfire, to put it kindly. The Deadpool star has poked fun at it on countless occasions, and the latest swipe he’s taken at the movie might just be his best yet.
The actor has posted his “secret cut” of the DC Comics adaptation onto Twitter and it’s far easier to sit through than the original. For starters, it’s less than 30 seconds long. The video begins with recycled footage from Deadpool 2‘s post-credits sequence, namely the part where Wade Wilson carries out the most heroic act in movie history by blowing Reynolds’ brains out to prevent him from making Green Lantern.
In this alternative Green Lantern cut, the role of the titular superhero goes to Tom Cruise, and the remainder of the clip’s runtime is essentially the CliffsNotes version of the original movie, except Hal Jordan goes and joins up with the Justice League after defeating Parallax, proving the whiny Sinestro wrong and saving the day.
Here’s the secret Reynolds Cut of GL you all haven’t been waiting for. In order to make it as great as possible we made some judicious cuts. pic.twitter.com/B2tUelctr8
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) August 4, 2020
The Justice League footage was, of course, taken from the DCEU movie which is soon to release an alternate cut on HBO Max following an agreement between the streamer and director Zack Snyder. Although Reynolds’ Twitter video was made in jest, there’s a chance we might get to see Hal Jordan in the Snyder Cut of Justice League as well, as Green Lantern is rumored to have featured in the filmmaker’s version of the movie.
As we know, there were plans in place for Reynolds to appear in Green Lantern sequels. That much was confirmed by the post-credits stringer in which Sinestro dons the yellow ring, and who knows, if they’d taken off, we might have seen the actor team up with Superman and co. in an alternative version of Justice League by now.
In any case, Green Lantern‘s critical and commercial underperformance doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of the character outside of comics. A Green Lantern Corps TV show is in the works for HBO Max, and if it fulfils its potential, a return to the big screen shouldn’t be too far away. Let’s just hope they don’t make his costume animated this time.