Jack Black Almost Starred in a Wild R-Rated GREEN LANTERN Movie 20 Years Ago and There Was a Giant Pikachu Asteroid

With Lanterns putting Green Lantern back in the spotlight, fans are digging into the character’s strange Hollywood history, and one abandoned project is getting attention again.

Before Ryan Reynolds put on the ring, Jack Black nearly starred in an R-rated Green Lantern comedy that sounds completely insane.

We’re talking giant green condoms, The Beatles, Superman, a reality TV contestant eating a severed coyote head, and a climactic battle involving a giant Pikachu-shaped asteroid. Somehow, all of those things were going to exist in the same Green Lantern movie.

Back in 2004, Warner Bros. hired Saturday Night Live writer Robert Smigel to develop a comedic take on Green Lantern. Rather than putting Hal Jordan at the center of the story, Smigel created a new character named Jud Plato, with Black lined up to play him.

Jud was a slacker who appeared as a contestant on a disgusting reality show called Wild Eats. His life changed when Abin Sur crashed on Earth and his Green Lantern power ring went searching for someone without fear.

This is where things got wonderfully ridiculous. The ring saw Jud eating a severed coyote head on television and interpreted the stunt as evidence that he was completely fearless. Jud was chosen as the new Green Lantern, despite being about as far from Hal Jordan as Warner Bros. could possibly get.

His newfound cosmic powers were used exactly as you might expect from a Jack Black superhero comedy. Jud created immature constructs with the ring, including giant green condoms and a green version of The Beatles.

Things only got stranger from there. Kilowog was going to serve as Jud's mentor, Sinestro was the villain, and a green Superman construct was also part of the story. The finale reportedly involved Green Lantern battling an alien hive mind disguised as a giant Pikachu-shaped asteroid.

The project has resurfaced thanks in part to YouTube channel Cutshort, which revisited the history of the abandoned movie. Reports about Black possibly playing Green Lantern first appeared in 2004 through the gossip column Lying in the Gutters and an Ain't It Cool forum post.

Smigel's movie was described as a "zany comedy" loosely adapting the 1980s Emerald Dawn storyline. A version of the screenplay eventually leaked online in 2006, giving fans a look at just how far the movie planned to push its parody of superhero conventions.

The response wasn't exactly warm. Fans weren't thrilled about Green Lantern's first major live-action movie becoming an R-rated superhero spoof, and the backlash surrounding the project became massive.

The renewed discussion hasn't made the concept sound any less strange to some fans. "The idea sounds serviceable as a separate superhero comedy, but it's crazy as the first ever Green Lantern live action movie," one person commented beneath Cutshort's YouTube video.

Another added, "Hearing [about] this script really makes me appreciate the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern movie all the more."

Years later, Black talked about the abandoned movie and explained that he was genuinely excited about Smigel's screenplay. Warner Bros., however, wasn't willing to take the gamble.

"There was a really funny script, an awesome script that I wanted to do, by the genius Robert Smigel… but they didn't want to pull the trigger," Black said. "They were making zillions of dollars with all their other superhero movies – they didn't want to mess with that formula."

The decision makes more sense when you consider where superhero movies were at the time. Warner Bros. had Batman Begins and Superman Returns in its pipeline, and turning Green Lantern into an R-rated Jack Black comedy would have been a pretty drastic departure from the direction DC's biggest heroes were heading.

Warner Bros. eventually abandoned the parody and pursued a more traditional Green Lantern movie. That road ultimately led to Green Lantern in 2011, starring Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan. We all know how that worked out.

The Reynolds movie became one of the more infamous superhero disappointments of its era, and even Reynolds has spent years making jokes about it.

Whether Black's version would have been any better is impossible to know, but it certainly would have been harder to forget. A giant Pikachu asteroid would’ve definitely stuck in our heads.

Now Green Lantern fans finally have something very different with HBO's Lanterns, starring Aaron Pierre as John Stewart and Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan. The series brings two of DC's most important Lanterns together and gives the mythology another chance in live action.

Still, the Jack Black version remains one of those fascinating superhero movie "what ifs." Maybe it would have been a hilarious cult classic. Maybe it would have been a spectacular disaster. Either way, Jack Black wearing a power ring and fighting a giant Pikachu in space, would’ve been interesting to see.