10 Films Directors Regret Making

Martin Campbell is one of those reliable journeyman directors every studio wants to have on their speed dial, because if you give him a great script, he'll deliver spectacular results (GoldenEye, The Mask of Zorro, Casino Royale), and even if not, he'll do his damnedest to elevate mediocre material.

But it's tough to picture anyone salvaging 2011's risible DC superhero film Green Lantern, which from the ground-up just seemed like an egregiously ill-advised project.

A $200 million budget for a movie based on a superhero general audiences weren't terribly familiar with, and one that dared to render Ryan Reynolds' Lantern suit entirely in post production? Risky doesn't even begin to describe it.

Green Lantern went on to flop critically and commercially, its legacy cemented as something of a punchline once Reynolds' career rebounded with the Deadpool movies.

Campbell, who hadn't directed a film as CGI-reliant as this before, seemed out of his depth, and in a 2021 interview with Screenrant, admitted that he shouldn't have made it:

"The film did not work, really. That's the point, and I'm partly responsible for that. I shouldn't have done it. Because with something like Bond - I love Bond, and I watched every Bond film before I ever directed it. Superhero movies are not my cup of tea, and for that reason, I shouldn't have done it. But directors always have to carry the can for the failures. What do they say? Success has many fathers, failure has one. And that's me."