Draft:Lanterns (TV series)

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 mystery on Earth. Chris Mundy serves as showrunner.

Greg Berlanti began developing a Green Lantern television series by October 2019, with Seth Grahame-Smith and Marc Guggenheim soon joining as writers. The series was to focus on various Green Lanterns other than Jordan and Stewart. After James Gunn and Peter Safran became co-CEOs of DC Studios in October 2022, the series was redeveloped to focus on Jordan and Stewart. This was announced in January 2023, along with the series' detective story focus which was inspired by the series True Detective (2014–present). Mundy's involvement was confirmed in mid-2024, when the series was ordered by HBO.

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

Premise
Green Lanterns are intergalactic heroes who wear rings that give them extraordinary powers. The series follows experienced Lantern Hal Jordan and new recruit John Stewart as they investigate a mystery on Earth.

Cast and characters

 * Hal Jordan: A former test pilot and experienced Green Lantern
 * John Stewart: An ex-marine and new Green Lantern recruit

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 2011 film Green Lantern. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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 to portray Scott was in negotiations. 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. 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. Jeremy Irvine was revealed to be in talks to portray Scott in May, and was officially cast soon after. Lee Toland Krieger was hired to direct the first two episodes at the end of the month. In August 2021, Wittrock said filming would begin at the end of the year or in early 2022.

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. 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". A month later, the series was reaffirmed to be in development despite the cancellation of other HBO Max and DC projects by WBD. In October 2022, Grahame-Smith was revealed to have left the series, which was being redeveloped to focus on John Stewart. 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. 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.

Development
Gunn said in December 2022 that Green Lantern characters would be an important part of the new DCU. 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 Lanterns 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 a "huge HBO-quality event" in the style of the series True Detective (2014–present), and the mystery that Jordan and Stewart investigate leads into the main storyline for the DCU so it was an important project for Gunn and Safran. 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. 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. Gunn confirmed the involvement of Mundy, King, and Lindelof in May 2024. The series received an eight-episode straight-to-series order from Max's corporate sibling channel HBO the next month, when Mundy was confirmed as showrunner and executive producer. 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 would still stream on Max.

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. Britt-Gibson previously worked with Lindelof on the script for an untitled Star Wars film.

Casting
In December 2022, Gunn ruled out the return of actor Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan from the Green Lantern film. In July 2023, Nathan Fillion was cast as Guy Gardner for the DCU film Superman (2025), and he was reported to be reprising his role in the series in February 2024.

Release
Lanterns is scheduled to air on HBO and stream on Max, and will consist of eight episodes. It will be part of the DCU's Chapter One: Gods and Monsters.