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Lanterns (TV series)

Upcoming DC Studios television series From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Lanterns is an upcoming American television series based on DC Comics featuring the Green Lantern characters Hal Jordan and John Stewart. Produced by DC Studios and Warner Bros. Television, it will be the third television series in the DC Universe (DCU). It features Jordan and Stewart investigating a murder on Earth. Chris Mundy serves as showrunner.

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Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre respectively star as Hal Jordan and John Stewart, alongside Kelly Macdonald and Nathan Fillion. Greg Berlanti began developing a Green Lantern television series by October 2019. After James Gunn and Peter Safran became co-CEOs of DC Studios in October 2022, the series was redeveloped. It was announced in January 2023, along with its detective story style, which was inspired by the series True Detective (2014–present) and Slow Horses (2022–present). Mundy's involvement alongside executive producers Tom King and Damon Lindelof was confirmed in mid-2024 when the series was ordered by HBO. Slow Horses's James Hawes was hired to direct the first two episodes in October, when Chandler and Pierre were cast. Filming is taking place in Los Angeles from February to July 2025, with Stephen Williams, Geeta Vasant Patel, and Alik Sakharov also directing.

Lanterns will premiere on HBO in early 2026 and will consist of eight episodes. It will be part of the DCU's Chapter One: Gods and Monsters.

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Premise

Green Lanterns are intergalactic peacekeepers who wear rings that give them extraordinary powers. The series follows experienced Lantern Hal Jordan and new recruit John Stewart as they investigate a murder in Nebraska, which leads them to darker mysteries and reckonings.[1]

Episodes

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Lanterns will consist of eight episodes, with James Hawes also directing the second episode.[2] Stephen Williams, Geeta Vasant Patel, and Alik Sakharov are also directing episodes.[1]

Cast and characters

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Main

  • Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan:
    A former test pilot and legendary member of the Green Lantern Corps who is approaching retirement.[5][1] The writers took inspiration for the character from Sam Shepard's portrayal of Chuck Yeager in the film The Right Stuff (1983). Showrunner Chris Mundy felt Chandler had the same qualities as well as a dry wit that they felt was important for Jordan.[1]
  • Aaron Pierre as John Stewart:
    A new Green Lantern recruit who Jordan is training to replace himself.[6][1] Mundy said the character was both a marine and an artist, and felt Pierre could portray both of these aspects. He said Pierre was a "serious theater actor, yet he also looks like he was built in a lab to be an action star".[1] Director James Hawes said Pierre had "a magnificent presence. He feels so forceful, so cool, so understated."[7]
  • Kelly Macdonald as Kerry: A sheriff deeply devoted to her family and close-knit town[8]
  • Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner:
    An abrasive member of the Green Lantern Corps,[9] who Fillion described as "the last [Green Lantern] you want" in an emergency. Fillion said the character is "a little bit higher strung" in Lanterns compared to his introduction in the film Superman (2025), and enjoyed being able to explore the character in a new environment.[10]

Recurring

Guest

  • Chris Coy as "Waylon Sanders": A nervous truck driver or an intelligent survivor whose real name is unknown[21]
  • Cary Christopher as young Noah: A charming, polite, and gifted small-town child[22]

Additionally, Laura Linney and Paula Patton have been cast in undisclosed roles.[23][24]

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Production

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Background

Greg Berlanti, the producer of multiple DC Comics–based television series, announced that he was developing a series based on the Green Lantern characters for the streaming service HBO Max in October 2019. Berlanti had previously co-written the film Green Lantern (2011).[25] In January 2020, he said the series would span several decades and tell two stories about Green Lanterns on Earth, as well as a story about the villainous character Sinestro in space.[26] The series was officially picked up for a 10-episode season by HBO Max that October. Marc Guggenheim, who also co-wrote the Green Lantern film, and Seth Grahame-Smith were revealed to be writing the series, with Grahame-Smith serving as showrunner.[27] The series could not make use of the main Green Lanterns from the comic books, Hal Jordan and John Stewart, because they were being reserved for DC Extended Universe (DCEU) films.[28] Instead, the series was set to explore other Green Lanterns from the comics, including Guy Gardner, Jessica Cruz, Simon Baz, Alan Scott, Kilowog, and new Green Lanterns created for the series.[27]

In April 2021, the series was revealed to be primarily focusing on Scott, a secretly gay FBI agent in 1941 who becomes Earth's first Green Lantern; and Gardner, an "embodiment of 1980s hyper-patriotism", alongside the half-alien Bree Jarta in 1984. Finn Wittrock was cast as Gardner after Berlanti received permission from producer Ryan Murphy for the actor to prioritize Green Lantern over the planned second season of Murphy's Netflix series Ratched (2020). An actor was in negotiations to portray Scott. The series was said to be the most expensive in Berlanti's career and was expected to begin filming later in 2021. Berlanti had been writing with Grahame-Smith and Guggenheim, who were all serving as executive producers alongside Geoff Johns, Sarah Schechter, David Madden, and David Katzenberg.[29] Pornsak Pichetshote, who previously served as an editor for DC's Vertigo Comics imprint and was an executive at DC Entertainment overseeing its television content, was later revealed to be part of the writers' room as well.[30] Jeremy Irvine was revealed to be in talks to portray Scott in May,[31] and was officially cast soon after.[32] Lee Toland Krieger was hired to direct the first two episodes at the end of the month.[33] In August 2021, Wittrock said filming would begin at the end of the year or in early 2022.[34]

In April 2022, Discovery, Inc. and Warner Bros.' parent company WarnerMedia merged to become Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), led by president and CEO David Zaslav. The new company was expected to restructure DC Entertainment and Zaslav began searching for an equivalent to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige to lead the new subsidiary.[35] In June, Irvine said there was no scheduled start date for filming the series and the production was working on "getting all the stars to align".[36] A month later, the series was reaffirmed to be in development despite the cancellation of other HBO Max and DC projects by WBD.[37] In October 2022, Grahame-Smith was revealed to have left the series, which was being redeveloped to focus on John Stewart.[38] James Gunn and Peter Safran were announced as the co-chairs and co-CEOs of the newly formed DC Studios at the end of that month.[39] A week after starting their new roles, the pair had begun developing an eight-to-ten-year plan for a new DC Universe (DCU) that would be a "soft reboot" of the DCEU.[40][41][42]

Development

Gunn said in December 2022 that Green Lantern characters would be an important part of the new DCU.[43] On January 31, he and Safran unveiled the first projects from their DCU slate, which begins with Chapter One: Gods and Monsters. The third television series in the slate was Lanterns, a new iteration of the long-in-development Green Lantern series. This version features the two best-known Green Lanterns, Hal Jordan and John Stewart, and Safran said it would be an Earth-based detective story rather than the space opera that Berlanti had envisioned. He said the series would be an "HBO-quality event" in the style of crime drama series True Detective (2014–present),[44] and spy thriller series Slow Horses (2022–present).[1] The mystery that Jordan and Stewart investigate leads into the main storyline for the DCU, so the series was an important project for Gunn and Safran.[44]

Damon Lindelof was consulting on the series as a producer by January 2024, when it was said to be a priority project for the streaming service Max, the successor to HBO Max.[45][46] The following month, Chris Mundy was reported to be serving as showrunner while Tom King, a member of the DC Studios writers' room, was also attached as a producer.[46] Gunn confirmed the involvement of Mundy, King, and Lindelof in May 2024.[3] King had originally pitched the concept for the series and Mundy was hired by Gunn and Safran based on his work on the crime drama Ozark (2017–2022) as well as the fourth season of True Detective (2024). Mundy and King began developing the series together and enlisted Lindelof, who created the DC Comics–based limited series Watchmen (2019). Lindelof agreed to join based on his love of Ozark and King's comic books.[1]

The series received an eight-episode straight-to-series order from Max's corporate sibling channel HBO in June 2024, when Mundy was confirmed as showrunner and executive producer.[47][48] The move to HBO was made after WBD decided to shift many of its planned big-budget Max series based on their own intellectual property to be HBO originals instead; Lanterns was expected to still stream on Max in addition to airing on HBO.[49] DC Studios was meeting with possible directors for the series' pilot by September, including Stephen Williams who worked with Lindelof on Watchmen.[50] James Hawes, who directed the first season of Slow Horses, was hired to direct the first two episodes of Lanterns and serve as an executive producer the next month.[2] In February 2025, Williams was confirmed to be directing for the series, alongside Geeta Vasant Patel and Alik Sakharov,[1] while Ron Schmidt joined as an executive producer the following month.[17] Safran said the series could continue beyond the first season.[51] Mundy said it would stand alone from other DC Studios projects and was designed to tell a complete story, but he hoped that it could expand to have "many seasons".[1]

Writing

Mundy, King, and Lindelof had written the pilot script and series bible for Lanterns by the end of May 2024, when a full writers' room was being put together for the series. Justin Britt-Gibson, Breannah Gibson, and Vanessa Baden are also writers on the series.[3] Britt-Gibson previously worked with Lindelof on the script for an untitled Star Wars film.[52] Writing for the series was completed by the start of filming in February 2025.[1]

The series does not adapt any specific storylines from the comics, but Mundy said it is "steeped" in the Green Lantern comic book lore. The main characters have Green Lantern rings and the associated powers, and other aspects of the lore is seen or referenced in the series. However, the series is more grounded than the comics. Mundy said he was excited to create "something really grounded inside this big, amazing mythology. From the beginning, all we talked about was, how can we take all the things we loved about the source material and turn it into a layered, human HBO drama?" He wanted the series to be accessible to audiences that did not know the comics history, but satisfying for those who do.[1] Gunn was excited for the series to have a different tone from the first DCU film, Superman (2025), despite that project also featuring a Green Lantern in Guy Gardner.[51]

Casting

In December 2022, Gunn ruled out the return of actor Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan from the Green Lantern film.[53] Nathan Fillion was cast as Guy Gardner for Superman in July 2023,[54] and he was expected to co-star in the series by September 2024.[50][55] At that time, Josh Brolin was revealed to have been offered the role of Jordan at the end of August. The actor was looking for a new television role following the cancelation of his series Outer Range (2022–2024) and had previously played the DC Comics character Jonah Hex in the 2010 film of the same name. Jordan was expected to be the gruff, older partner similar to Danny Glover's Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon films. DC Studios was looking to cast a younger, "fresh-faced" Black actor as John Stewart, who was expected to be in his 20s.[50][56] Matthew McConaughey and Ewan McGregor were also in consideration for Jordan if a deal with Brolin could not be finalized.[57] Brolin passed on the role soon after his potential involvement was reported,[56] saying it "didn't work out",[58] and McConaughey was also not expected to be cast.[56]

Kyle Chandler was in negotiations to portray Jordan by the end of September,[59][60] while Aaron Pierre and Stephan James were in the mix to portray Stewart.[61] Gunn had almost cast Pierre as Adam Warlock in his Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023),[62] and the actor previously portrayed Dev-Em in the DC Comics–based series Krypton (2018–19).[63] Damson Idris was also on the shortlist to portray Stewart before a scheduling conflict arose.[61] Screen tests for Pierre and James were held in early October with Chandler.[2][62] On October 9, Pierre was cast as Stewart and Chandler was confirmed to be cast as Jordan.[5][6] Kelly Macdonald was cast in the main role of Sheriff Kerry at the end of the month.[8][11] Garret Dillahunt and Poorna Jagannathan were cast in the major recurring roles of William Macon and Zoe, respectively, in November,[11][12] and Ulrich Thomsen was cast in January 2025 to recur in the series as Sinestro.[13] In March, Nicole Ari Parker, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Sherman Augustus, J. Alphonse Nicholson, and Jason Ritter were respectively cast in the recurring roles of Stewart's mother Bernadette, a younger version of Bernadette,[14][15] Stewart's father John Sr., a younger version of John Sr.,[18][19] and Billy Macon,[17] while Fillion was confirmed to be appearing.[9]

In April 2025, Chris Coy and Paul Ben-Victor were cast to guest star as "Waylon Sanders" and recur as Antaan, respectively.[21][20] In late May, journalist Jeff Sneider reported that Laura Linney was part of the cast.[23] In August, Cary Christopher was revealed to have a guest starring role as young Noah,[22] and Paula Patton was also revealed to have a role in the series.[24]

Design

Cynthia Summers served as the costume designer.[64]

Filming

Principal photography began during the week of February 17, 2025, in Los Angeles, California,[1][65] under the working title Latitude.[66] Filming was previously expected to occur in Atlanta, Georgia, from January to June.[56] Gunn and Safran worked with WBD to get the tax credits and studio deals necessary to move the production from Atlanta, where Gunn filmed Superman, to Los Angeles. Safran said they were thrilled to be filming in the city and supporting locals following the January 2025 Southern California wildfires.[65] Hawes said comparisons to True Detective were valid due to Mundy's writing and the buddy cop structure, but Lanterns had more humor than that series. He compared it to films with "Americana heart" such as Fargo (1996) and No Country for Old Men (2007).[7] Mundy said Hawes's direction for the first two episodes captured the scope he was hoping for.[1]

Williams, Patel, and Sakharov directed additional episodes for the series.[1] Four episodes had been filmed by early May,[67] when Hawes wrapped filming his episodes.[68] At that time, filming was about to begin on the third and fourth episodes. Ritter said that the story was "jumping all around".[67] Filming was more than halfway finished by mid-June,[10] and was expected to continue until July 1.[69]

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Release

Lanterns is scheduled to air on HBO and stream on Max in early 2026,[49][4] and will consist of eight episodes.[47] Gunn said in November 2024 that he intended for the series to be released around the same time as the film Supergirl, which was scheduled for release in June 2026.[70] It will be part of the DCU's Chapter One: Gods and Monsters.[44]

References

External links

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