Ryan Reynolds once played one of DC’s most famous superheroes — but the Green Lantern mantle is now being passed to someone else.
The actor portrayed Hal Jordan in the 2011 DC film Green Lantern. Now, more than a decade later, DC Studios is revisiting the character in its upcoming HBO series Lanterns, which recently released its first trailer. This time, however, the role of Hal Jordan is being played by Kyle Chandler (The Wolf of Wall Street), marking a new take on the character in live action.
What's Happening With Deadpool?
With Reynolds once again part of conversations around comic-book movies — even indirectly — attention has inevitably turned back to another superhero role closely associated with the actor: Deadpool.
Whether Reynolds will suit up as Marvel’s Merc with a Mouth again remains unclear. During the promotional tour for Deadpool & Wolverine in 2024, Reynolds admitted he didn’t know what the future held for the character.
“I have no idea if I’ll ever wear that Deadpool suit again,” he told Collider at the time, adding, “I hope I do — but I don’t know.”
Related: Deadpool's New Voice: Neil Patrick Harris Takes Over From Ryan Reynolds : Disney Fanatic
The question of a potential fourth film has lingered ever since. Director Shawn Levy, who helmed Deadpool & Wolverine, addressed the possibility of continuing the series in 2025 while reflecting on the challenges of making sequels.
“I’m a fan of a lot of threes in the trilogies of movies,” he told Kevin McCarthy (via The Playlist) in 2025. “I love Back to the Future 3. I love Return of the King. [Endgame was] such a superior audience experience.”
He continued: “When you are telling a story that has the benefit of [a] legacy connection between the audience and the characters, you’re sort of like on second base already. When I look at Deadpool & Wolverine, that became a love letter to that [20th Century Fox] legacy. We were also able to tap into years of legacy storytelling.”
“I don’t know about rule of threes, ’cause the truth is, as I contemplate, for instance, ‘Okay, how do we make another Deadpool movie?'” Levy explained. “Sequels are hard. They are dauntingly hard. I made three Night at the Museum movies. It kicked my ass every time. And so, yeah, having seen how the sausage of sequels is made, I find the whole subject a little stressful because you want to get it right.”
Most recently, Deadpool (2016) and Deadpool 2 (2018) star TJ Miller weighed in on the possibility of a fourth film while discussing Reynolds’ ideas for the franchise.
“It has not sailed,” Miller said in a recent interview with 101 WRIF Detroit when asked about the possibility of returning. “And that’s all I’m going to say about that. Okay. Marvel gets so weird about this stuff. They’re just like, don’t talk about it, don’t talk about it. … And I will also say that his [Reynolds'] idea for the next Deadpool film is, like, really good. You know, it’s just, it is really smart.”
Will Ryan Reynolds Appear in Doomsday?
Speculation about the character’s future has also been fueled by rumors that Deadpool could appear in the upcoming crossover event Avengers: Doomsday (2026), though Marvel Studios has not confirmed any involvement.
Meanwhile, Reynolds was “replaced” the role in 2025’s Deadpool VR. Instead, the character was voiced by Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) instead.
Given the enormous success of the previous films — including Deadpool, Deadpool 2, and Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) — it’s hard to imagine Marvel Studios and Disney leaving the character on the sidelines for long.
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