While most of DC core superhero characters, from Superman to Wonder Woman to Aquaman have all been introduced in the modern generation of DC movies, one character, Green Lantern, has found himself conspicuous by his absence. Instead of getting a movie, the plan was for Green Lantern’s modern incarnation to be introduced via HBO Max streaming series, and while that is still the plan, the show has undergone a major overhaul, right down to which version of Green Lantern will appear in the show.
There have been multiple Green Lantern characters in DC Comics over the years, the best known being Hal Jordan, the version portrayed by Ryan Reynolds in the previous attempt at a big screen outing, and John Stewart, an African-American lantern who was popularized to modern audiences via the Justice League animated series in the early 2000s. This made it a surprise when it was announced that the HBO Max series would instead focus on two other Lanterns, Alan Scott and Guy Gardner. However, the show is now being retooled, and THR says that John Stewart will now be the focus of the series.
The decision to retool the show now is at least a little surprising as the now former showrunner Seth Grahame-Smith had apparently completed eight scripts for the show, enough for the entire first season, under the previous conditions.
The exact reason for the decision to retool the show isn’t explained beyond the fact that the decision was made following the recent exit of Walter Hamada from Warner Bros. He had previously been overseeing all of DC’s projects at the studio. It was recently announced that James Gunn and Peter Safarin would be taking over as CO-CEOs of DC Studios, but they don’t officially start in that job until November 1, so this wasn’t a call made by them.
Whatever the reason, this change will likely be embraced by Green Lantern fans for the simple reason that John Stewart is a generally more popular character than the versions of Green Lantern that had been planned previously.
While Finn Wittrock and Jeremy Irvine, who had previously been cast as Gardner and Scott are no longer attached to the project, sources told THR that Berlanti Productions hopes to work with them again when this new version of the show goes into production, so it’s possible we could still see these Green Lanterns, but they just won’t be the main characters of the show.
While the Green Lantern series had initially been on the fast track, it appears this new version of the production will be taking its time getting to HBO Max. And while the new bosses of DC Studios apparently had no influence on this decision, once their new jobs do start next week, there’s always the possibility that they could change things further.
