Thank Green Lantern For Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl & Legends of Tomorrow

We have the Green Lantern movie to thank for the Arrow-verse, which consists of Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.

So how is Green Lantern, considered to be a failure and flop, responsible for the popular CW DC shows? It’s all about control.

Back in May saw Greg Berlanti reveal the writers of Green Lantern weren’t too blame for the movie’s dismal performance. Now in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, it’s again stated Berlanti’s Green Lantern script was re-written in which Berlanti and company learned from their previous experience leading to the Arrow-verse.

The rise of the Arrowverse lies in the ruin of another suphero dream. In 2007, Berlanti, Guggenheim, and Michael Green (Heroes) wrote a film script that would become Green Lantern starring Ryan Reynolds. Their reference point was the Silver Age of comics, the midcentury renaissance that rebooted Golden Age characters, launched a Marvel revolution, and injected modernist themes–irreverence, psychological angst, social concerns, space-age wonder, and atomic age anxiety–into the fantasy. But their vision was muddied when Berlanti lost the director’s job to Martin Cambell and the script was rewritten. After collecting more learning experiences on TV projects including the short-lived ABC show No Ordinary Family, Berlanti and Guggenheim pitched Arrow to Warner Bros. Their previous flameout taught them to insist on three things: “Control, control, and control,” says Guggenheim.

So we see that at least something good came out of the 2011 Green Lantern movie, which made less that $220 million worldwide and barely over $100 million in the U.S.

Regarding more of Green Lantern in the movies, a Green Lantern Corps movie is expected in 2020, and it’s heavily speculated a Green Lantern character may first appear in Justice League or Justice League 2.

It did seem at one time as if Berlanti wanted Green Lantern for his Arrow-verse, but with the GLC movie it appears WB put the kibosh on any hopes of Green Lantern on Arrow or The Flash (note: the movies and TV shows are separate).

Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green were also said to have written a treatment for Green Lantern 2, which was rewritten by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Green Lantern scribe Michael Goldenberg featuring Green Lantern 2 mostly set in space with Hal Jordan and Sinestro (more details here).

Berlanti is also developing a Booster Gold movie.