Ryan Reynolds Worries on Michael B. Jordan’s Career Post-‘Fantastic Four’ Flop: ‘Not Easy for a Black Actor’

Actor Ryan Reynolds weighed in on this summer’s colossal mega-flop Fantastic Four, saying in a recent interview that he is concerned the failure of the movie could hurt black cast member Michael B. Jordan more than any of the other actors.

Released in August, Fantastic Four earned a paltry $25 million in its opening weekend, an awful start for a film that cost upwards of $100 million to produce and market. The film, which starred Jordan, Kate Mara, Miles Teller, and Jamie Bell as the titular superheroes, ended its domestic run with a disastrous $55.7 million.

In a wide-ranging interview for GQ magazine’s October cover story, Reynolds said he was “more frustrated” that Jordan could have a harder time rebounding from the flop than his white castmates.

“You know, Miles Teller’s gonna recover,” Reynolds told the magazine. “Miles Teller’s gonna go on to do amazing things, you know. It’s important that Michael B. Jordan continues to go on and do amazing things.”

The actor referenced his own experience with a mega-flop — 2011’s critically-savaged Green Lantern — to express his sympathy with actors forced to make a comeback.

“I know it’s not easy for a black actor,” Reynolds told GQ. “It’s not easy for a female actor. It’s not easy for a lot of people that are… That entire cast is amazingly talented. And I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. I mean, I know what that feels like. It doesn’t feel good. And it also is difficult, because you don’t feel like you can control that outcome. You know, as much as you want to. You can’t really.”

Reynolds can take some comfort in the fact that Jordan’s career does not seem to have stalled since the Fantastic Four fiasco. The young actor is set to play Apollo Creed’s son opposite Sylvester Stallone in the highly-anticipated Rocky spinoff movie Creed opening later this year. Meanwhile, Twentieth Century Fox and Marvel are debating whether to move forward with a Fantastic Four sequel, which Jordan will be in if they decide to make it. Jordan is also said to be on Universal Studios’ shortlist to play hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons in a rumored Def Jam Records biopic.

Teller also seems to be doing fine after a rough summer; the Whiplash standout is currently filming the third movie in the Y.A. Divergent series, is set to star as WCB boxer Vinny Pazienza in next year’s Bleed for This, and has a couple more comedies in the works, including a stint opposite Jonah Hill in Todd Phillips’ upcoming political comedy Arms and the Dudes.

In fact, the only one who appears to have been seriously hurt by Fantastic Four‘s failure is director Josh Trank. Trank seemingly came out of nowhere to direct 2013’s found-footage hero movie Chronicle, and many had speculated that Fantastic Four‘s big-budget action focus was too much for the sophomore director. It certainly did not help that Trank famously blasted his own film on Twitter on the day of its release.

Meanwhile, Reynolds is plenty busy himself; in addition to returning to the animated children’s franchise The Croods, the former Green Lantern star is set to play another superhero in the very-highly-anticipated Deadpool, out early next year.

“I think one of the reasons that Deadpool has gained a lot of momentum isn’t just that it’s funny or isn’t just that it’s rated R,” Reynolds told GQ of his new film. “The meta aspect is very important. So I think Deadpool‘s coming along at the right time, because it’s also speaking to that generation and that group of people that have seen them all, seen all these comic-book films and enjoyed them all to varying degrees of success. But I think it’s speaking to them as though the guy in that red suit is one of them, to some degree.”

Deadpool hits theaters on February 12, 2016.

Check out the rest of Reynolds’ GQ interview here.