7 Times Fan Reaction Actually Changed Movies

Comic book fans love their source material. They’re understandably devoted to the decades of comic book lore and can be feverishly protective of the material as a result. While certain deviations from the original story and characters can be tolerated, bigger, unwarranted changes are often greeted with severe hostility.

Nevertheless, it’s in a movie’s best interest to be original. After all, if they were just a slave to the source, there would be no need to see them in the first place. This originality most notably manifests itself with the cinematic handling of characters. Whether it’s their appearance or the way they’re characterized, sometimes the smallest of changes can be a bit too much.

When these changes do become overwhelming, the fans almost always speak up. The internet makes it easier than ever to voice displeasure, and the complaints can quickly pile up. Most of the creators involved in the films usually just ignore these complaints, but sometimes it’s too hard to look the other way. Not wanting to upset their devoted fanbase, it’s a surprisingly frequent occurrence that movies will cave in some meaningful way to the whims of the fans.

Whether it brought about a positive, meaningful change or not, these are the most memorable cases of when a movie’s initial idea was overhauled as a result of the poor fan reaction towards it.

The Initial Idea: Before the unintentionally-hilarious Green Lantern starring Ryan Reynolds, Warner Bros was seriously considering pursuing an action-comedy version of Green Lantern with Jack Black as the lead.

The Fan Reaction: When Robert Smigel’s script hit the internet, fans were not amused. Even though it was only a first draft, the story was so completely wrong that many writers took the time to point out its numerous failings online.

Tonally, it was meant to be like The Mask, featuring an overweight everyman named Jud, who used the ring comically. His methods included stopping a villain with prophylactics and conjuring up a green Superman to spin the Earth backwards.

When Jack Black was cast, cementing both the comedic nature of the film and the studio’s intent to pursue it, the uproar reached a fever pitch. Combined with the poor results of Catwoman, a movie that was similarly unfaithful to the comics, the fan reaction was enough to get the whole thing canned. If only we knew the movie we had brought about to replace it....