Today James Gunn (Peacemaker, The Suicide Squad) and Peter Safran (The Nun 2, Aquaman), co-CEOs of DC Comics’ newly-minted DC Studios, announced a new Green Lantern live-action series as part of the DCU’s rebooted universe. Originally announced in 2019 the series will now be titled Lanterns. View Gunn’s video announcing the new slate of projects below.
The original concept for the HBO Max series came from Arrowverse producer Greg Berlanti who was responsible for launching The CW’s DC Comic shows such as Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl. Berlanti was also attached to scribe a Green Lantern series as part of the Arrowvese, but it never came to fruition. Since the show’s initial announcement, the series has undergone several changes.
The series once had writers Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride Prejudice and Zombies, Unholy Night) and Marc Guggenheim (Eli Stone, Vixen: The Movie) attached and was set to focus on characters Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz. Then, the leads shifted to Guy Gardner and Alan Scott, with Finn Wittrock (American Horror Story, Luckiest Girl Alive) and Jeremy Irvine (Fallen, Great Expectations) playing the heroes, respectively. These plans fell through as John Stewart became the lead character, and showrunner Grahame-Smith soon departed the project. Now in 2023, the series will refocus on the original Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Stewart.
Described by Gunn as “almost like True Detective with a couple of Lanterns that are space cops,” Lanterns will follow Jordan, Stewart, and a few other heroes as they patrol Earth and the greater galaxy. The two will stumble upon a mystery that will link to the DC’s greater universe story connecting narratives across their film, TV, gaming, and animated properties.
While the DCU will be connected via upcoming films like Shazam: Fury of the Gods and this summer’s The Flash, Gunn details other-related DC properties such as Matt Reeves’s The Batman and its spinoff series, The Penguin, will exist in the DC Elseworlds universe.
As this series is still early in development, there was no release date or casting information announced.