Lanterns | Series based on Green Lantern given the go-ahead at HBO

Lanterns
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Ozarkā€™s Chris Mundy will be the showrunner on a new HBO series based on Green Lantern. Heā€™ll co-write Lanterns with Damon Lindelof and Tom King.


After years in gestation, a new TV series based on the Green Lantern comic books has been given the go-ahead at HBO. Called Lanterns, itā€™ll run for eight episodes and will be headed up by Chris Mundy, previously the showrunner for the hit series Ozark and the producer on True Detective: Night Country.

Mundy will co-write the episodes with Damon Lindelof (whose best-known work is arguably Lost) and Tom King, whoā€™s written a staggering number of comics over the past 20 years or so, mostly for DC. (Weā€™ve also just learned, thanks to this article, that King worked in counter-terrorism for the CIA for a number of years in the early 2000s. Blimey.)

A Green Lantern series has been in the works for years at HBO. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Seth Grahame-Smith wrote the scripts for a full season of episodes under the watchful eye of producer Greg Barlanti; these were then abandoned in 2023.

According to DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran, that abandoned version was ā€œmore of a space opera,ā€ and that Lanterns is altogether more grounded. ā€œOur vision is more True Detective,ā€ Safran said at a presentation in 2023, ā€œmore of a terrestrial-based investigation story. We all agreed to part ways.ā€

Read more: The late $9m of extra money pumped into the Green Lantern movie

The change of approach may have been taken in order to save costs (there was talk of Green Lantern being the ā€œmost expensive DC show ever made,ā€ according to earlier reports) and also to distance it tonally from the 2011 Green Lantern movie, which was itself a galaxy-sprawling space opera of sorts. The latter cost $200m to make and barely made that sum back on its cinema release.

Safran and James Gunn, the other co-CEO of DC Studios, have expressed their enthusiasm for Lanterns in a statement published by THR.

“We’re thrilled to bring this seminal DC title to HBO with Chris, Damon and Tom at the helm,” the pair wrote. “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.”

Superman, written and directed by Gunn and starring David Corenswet as the new Man of Steel, will premiere on the 11th July 2025. When we have an air date for Lanterns, weā€™ll let you know.

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