With the DC Universe set to include Green Lantern in the coming years, Top Gun: Maverick writer Christopher McQuarrie has claimed that the franchise’s mistreatment of the hero had an easy fix. Despite one of the Green Lanterns, Guy Gardner, appearing in both James Gunn’s Superman movie and Peacemaker season 2 in 2025, the character has been underutilized for decades in live-action. DC’s animated universe has treated the Green Lanterns well, but both before and after 2011’s infamous flop starring Ryan Reynolds, iterations of the space cops have been almost nonexistent for various reasons and problems.

Recently, however, a fix to these problems has been proposed by Top Gun: Maverick writer and Mission: Impossible director Christopher McQuarrie in an interview for the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast. McQuarrie was asked by host Josh Horowitz about McQuarrie’s rumored plans for both a Man of Steel 2 and Green Lantern movie in the old DCEU, to which the filmmaker shared how he would fix the latter’s live-action issues:

“I’ll never tell, but, boy, it was f****** good. It was f****** good. Green Lantern was what had come to me. And Green Lantern is a tough one… the power is very challenging, and I cracked it. It was fun and watching him learn how to use that power and giving that power a flaw, so that it was not pure invincibility. The whole concept of Green Lantern is the ring has to be recharged… that’s not a bug, that’s a feature. Yes, you have infinite power, but you only have so much battery life, and that can run out at inconvenient times. That, for me, solved the whole Green Lantern problem… I realized, don’t worry about the costume, worry about that character. And, how do you give that character tension and stakes?”

According to McQuarrie, DC’s issues with Green Lantern as a character have been with his visual appearance and power-scaling. McQuarrie wished to dial that down, focusing on the moments where the character is in crisis and having to deal with the fact that their powers are not unlimited.

What Christopher McQuarrie’s Comments Mean For Green Lantern In Live-Action

The DCU Could Learn From McQuarrie’s View On Green Lantern

Sadly, McQuarrie’s comments will likely never come to fruition. After all, the filmmaker’s Green Lantern pitch was part of the old DCEU movie timeline, with James Gunn’s DCU instead taking center stage as of 2025. That being said, the depiction of Green Lantern in the DCU could learn from this, with signs indicating that this more “tension and stakes” route that McQuarrie spoke about will be implemented in the DCU’s Lanterns TV show.

From what has been revealed about Lanterns thus far, the show is shaping up to be a smaller-scale adventure. It has been described as a True Detective-like series, with John Stewart and Hal Jordan investigating a murder in the American heartland that is tied to a mᴀssive DCU mystery. Based on this, it seems as though the DCU’s first Green Lantern-centric story will be much more focused on the characters and the stakes of their investigations. Whether it ties to McQuarrie’s comments about infinite power remains to be seen, but all signs point to the DCU learning from past mistakes with these characters.

Our Take On Christopher McQuarrie’s Green Lantern Comments

It Is Refreshing To Have A Big Hollywood Filmmaker Know A Lot About Superheroes

Overall, I love McQuarrie’s comments about Green Lantern. I similarly loved McQuarrie’s comments on Man of Steel 2, a film he pitched to DC alongside his Green Lantern idea. Above all, these comments prove to me that McQuarrie understands DC’s characters well. Naturally, I am excited to see if McQuarrie could work in the DC Universe in the future. I am already hyped about the future of the franchise and trust James Gunn to deliver a fantastic interconnected universe of DC characters. If Gunn can hire filmmakers with as much care about these characters as McQuarrie, the DCU will be in good hands.