Exclusive: Tom Cruise Wanted For Green Lantern Movie
We've exclusively learned that DC is interested in Tom Cruise for a Green Lantern movie.
This article is more than 2 years old
It’s a little surprising that Tom Cruise hasn’t signed on for a superhero franchise yet. He likes doing sequels, wild stunts, and isn’t afraid to touch the science-fiction genre. Years ago, there was talk of the iconic actor joining DC to play Hal Jordan in a Green Lantern movie. This became such a hot topic that Ryan Reynolds, who previously played the character, made a video about it on social media. Still, sometimes these plans don’t work out, especially when the studio moves on to other ideas. However, we’ve learned that isn’t the case here. We’ve exclusively learned from one of our trusted and proven inside sources that DC is still trying to get Tom Cruise to play Hal Jordan in a Green Lantern movie.
DC is moving forward with a lot of new ideas lately, but they haven’t let go of Tom Cruise as Green Lantern after all. Perhaps now that he has Top Gun: Maverick and more Mission Impossible under his belt, now will be the right time for the star. While we were able to learn that the studio is still set on making a Tom Cruise Green Lantern project happen, our source was unable to share what Tom Cruise’s team has responded to this.
It seems likely that if his issue was specifically that he wasn’t interested in playing Hal Jordan, then the actor would have said this to DC, and the studio may have come back with another role to get him into the franchise. If a studio has a star with as much draw as Tom Cruise interested in some way, they’d want to keep the conversation going. Since they’re staying on Green Lantern specifically, it seems most likely that the actor is interested in the role, but has conditions they’re trying to work with. Perhaps he wants to work with a specific director, perhaps he wants changes to the script, promises of a bigger budget for stunts, or perhaps he just wants to be really sure that it isn’t going to be the butt of a joke.
While Green Lantern has been beloved in the comics and other iterations, Ryan Reynolds has made jokes about his role in the DC movie many times. It wouldn’t be surprising if that is making Tom Cruise hesitant. While he’s still a respected actor in Hollywood, in his long career, he’s been the subject of jokes and made a few box office flops. Knowing how the Ryan Reynolds project went down would likely give any star some pause. That’s also likely part of why DC is staying set on Cruise. They feel that bringing in a major star will help turn things around for Hal Jordan’s character.
We learned that they want him for a Green Lantern movie, but not the details of the story at this point. It sounds like they may be more open to making changes to that, in order to get Tom Cruise onboard. HBO Max has a Green Lantern Corps series in the works, but nothing we’ve learned says the two need to be related. For now, DC is still working to convince him to sign on for a movie, and that may mean they’re closer to convincing him than they were years ago.
