After Years of Waiting, Hollywood’s Newest ‘Green Lantern’ Story Finally Has a Release Date
We finally know which “brightest day” will be the premiere of DC Studios’ Lanterns. On Thursday, HBO and DC Studios officially confirmed that the series will make its premiere on Sunday, August 16th. The season is expected to run for a total of eight episodes, which will (presumably) wrap up with a finale on Sunday, October 4th.
This places Lanterns in roughly the same window as DC Studios’ release of Peacemaker Season 2 last year, which had new episodes debuting on HBO Max every Thursday from late August through early October. It also lets the season finish several weeks before the premiere of DC Studios’ Clayface movie, which is scheduled to land in theaters on Friday, October 23rd.
Attached to the date announcement was a new screenshot from Lanterns, showing a hand recharging the Green Lantern ring on its accompanying battery. As comic fans know, the act of recharging the ring to full power, usually within the span of 24 hours, is a huge staple of the Lantern mythos. The still not only shows us what that act will look like in Lanterns, but it does show an awful lot of bright green, which fans had been clamoring for after the first teaser was released earlier this spring. The initial batch of footage featured a more muted color palette, not only to convey the world of the show (and its similarities to the more grounded “Hard-Travelin’ Heroes” run of the Green Lantern comics of the late ’70s), but most likely to give the more VFX-heavy alien superheroics more time to cook.
Either way, Lanterns marks the first Green Lantern solo project in over a decade, after the Ryan Reynolds-led movie was released (and quickly turned into the butt of countless jokes) in 2011. There were plenty of stops and starts in the years since, including a film script being written by one of Green Lantern‘s most definitive modern comic writers, Geoff Johns, and countless rumors that Tom Cruise would step into the role of Hal Jordan. Then there was a previous attempt at a Green Lantern HBO series spearheaded by Arrow‘s Marc Guggenheim (who also was one of the writers on the 2011 film) and Seth Grahame-Smith, which planned to be set across multiple time periods. After years of that project being in development, and the roles of Alan Scott and Guy Gardner tentatively being cast for it, it was announced that the series would go in a new creative direction amid the restructuring of DC Studios.
What Is Lanterns About?
According to DC Studios’ official description for the series, Lanterns follows new recruit John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) and Lantern legend Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.
The ensemble cast of Lanterns also includes Kelly Macdonald as Kerry, Garret Dillahunt as William Macon, Poorna Jagannathan as Zoe, Nicole Ari Parker as Bernadette Stewart, Jason Ritter as Billy Macon, Sherman Augustus as John Stewart Sr., Paul Ben-Victor as Antaan, and Ulrich Thomsen as Sinestro. Nathan Fillion will also reprise his scene-stealing role of Guy Gardner from 2025’s Superman.
The pilot for Lanterns is co-written by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King. The first two episodes are directed by James Hawes, with Stephen Williams, Geeta Vasant Patel and Alik Sakharov also tapped to direct. The series is executive produced by Mundy, Lindelof, James Gunn, Peter Safran, King, Ron Schmidt, and Hawes.
“From the start, our driving force has been to deliver a layered drama – rooted in nuanced storytelling and rich world building – that balances tension and mystery with honest, authentic emotion,” Mundy said in a statement when the series first began production. “The goal is to create something that feels timeless and grounded without sacrificing the magic of the source material.”
As mentioned above, Lanterns is set to debut on HBO on Sunday, August 16th.
(featured image: DC Studios/HBO)
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
