The Green Lantern's finally got the green light! Per THR's reporting, John Stewart and Hal Jordan — two iconic bearers of DC's Green Lantern mantle — are headed to the small screen in Lanterns, an eight episode drama that's landed a straight-to-series order at HBO. The project, spearheaded by the powerhouse creative trio of showrunner Chris Mundy (True Detective: Night Country) and co-writers Damon Lindelof (Watchmen) and DC Comics legend Tom King, will be the first live-action TV show in James Gunn and Peter Safran's all-new DC Universe.
Originally set as a HBO Max series from Seth Grahame-Smith and Greg Berlanti almost five years ago, at one point the Green Lanterns show would've seen Finn Wittrock and Jeremy Irvine as Lanterns Guy Gardner and Alan Scott in an out-and-out space opera. (Noteworthily, Nathan Fillion is set to play Gardner in Gunn's upcoming Superman movie.) Lanterns however is taking a different direction, with Mundy's True Detective-esque take on the comics set to follow “two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland,” per the show's latest logline.
“We’re thrilled to bring this seminal DC title to HBO with Chris, Damon and Tom at the helm,” said Gunn and Safran in a joint statement accompanying Lanterns’ HBO pick-up. “John Stewart and Hal Jordan are two of DC’s most compelling characters, and Lanterns brings them to life in an original detective story that is a foundational part of the unified DCU we’re launching next summer with Superman.”
After the less-than-inspiring, best left unspoken of 2011 Green Lantern film starring Ryan Reynolds as superpowered ring bearer Hal Jordan, it's been a long road to a proper attempt to bring one of DC's most expansive and canonically rich franchises to our screens. And whilst we've no release date to share just yet for this one, with a killer concept and an exciting creative team backing Lanterns, the Green Lantern Corps finally look set to shine on our screens at long last. Beware its power!