Typical fanboy excuses. Firefly didn't do anything that wasn't done before on network tv. The acclaim for the show is more because of the low standards that exist for science fiction on television. Whedon seems to use this excuse often when his projects flop(Alien 4, Firefly, Dollhouse)..."My work was mishandled"
His only issue is his age? How about the fact that no one knows who the hell Nathan Fillion is outside of fat Whedonites and nerd girls. The average movie goer doesn't care about Nathon Fillion. At least Reynolds has some sort of name recognition. I hated him as Lantern but I understood why they chose him. Neither are very good actors so I don't see why we're comparing their acting chops. They're both very one-dimensional.
First off, I'm not a fanboy. I like the show, but I haven't even watched the series all the way through more than once. I just know facts are facts, and the fact is FOX didn't play the Pilot first, and shuffled everything else. The show wasn't amazing by any stretch, but it was poorly managed by FOX and deserved more than one season. If it was really that bad, they wouldn't have made a film, a comic series and had such large DVD sales.
Watch Castle. One of the higher rated shows on TV, and he's the star.
The average movie goer doesn't care about Andrew Garfield, Jeremy Renner, Henry Cavill, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, the list goes on.
You're right, Ryan Reynolds did have a name. He was in Waiting, Van Wilder, one of the worst comic book movies of all time in Blade Trinity, X-Men Origins Wolverine, The Proposal... I'm sorry, but none of those scream "Hal Jordan" to me. They wanted a sexy young guy to make money, not a good movie.
Fillion may not be the best actor out there, but like I said before, he would've at least taken the role seriously. Reynolds was, as I expected, a clown.
I'm not saying Fillion was my top choice by any means. But he was way ahead of Reynolds.