Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler will lead HBO's 'Lanterns,' over a decade after Ryan Reynolds' widely panned 'Green Lantern.' Here's what to know.
- HBO and DC Studios announced that Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler will lead the "Lanterns" TV show.
- The gritty mystery will follow two "Green Lantern" characters, John Stewart and Hal Jordan.
HBO and DC Studios announced that Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler will lead the upcoming "Lanterns" TV show — the first major "Green Lantern" project since Ryan Reynolds' widely panned 2011 movie.
In the comics, the Green Lantern Corps is an intergalactic police force, with each Lantern working to keep the peace across the universe.
Reynolds played the most commonly known version of the hero, Hal Jordan, in an origin story that made only $227 million against a $200 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo.
Warner Bros. scheduled a "Green Lantern Corps" movie for 2020 as part of Zack Snyder's DC Extended Universe, but it never materialized.
Producer Greg Berlanti also tried to create a TV series on HBO Max, but those plans were canceled when James Gunn and Peter Safran became co-chairmen of DC Studios in December 2022.
The "Lanterns" TV series seems to have a better chance of getting off the ground now that it has found its two leads.
"Lanterns" will explore a "dark, Earth-based mystery."
The description of the eight-episode series, which was released in June, suggests that "Lanterns" will blend the cosmic scale of its characters with a gritty storyline.
It reads: "The series follows new recruit John Stewart and Lantern legend Hal Jordan, two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland."
When Gunn and Safran announced their plans for their rebooted DC Universe in January 2023, they said that "Lanterns" is inspired by the dark crime drama, "True Detective."
"This is a story of a couple of Green Lanterns: John Stewart and Hal Jordan, and we have a few other Lanterns peppered in there, but this is really a terrestrial-based TV show, which is almost like 'True Detective' with a couple of Green Lanterns who are space cops watching over precinct Earth. In it, they discover a terrifying mystery that ties into our larger story of the DCU," Gunn said in an announcement video.
Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler play John Stewart and Hal Jordan, respectively
In late September, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Chandler was cast as Jordan, making him the second person to play the beloved space cop after Reynolds in the 2011 movie. The outlet also reported that HBO planned to start filming "Lanterns" in January 2025.
In early October, Gunn confirmed on X that "Rebel Ridge" actor Aaron Pierre had been cast as John Stewart.
He wrote: "Welcome to DC, Aaron Pierre. After a long and grueling series of auditions I am absolutely sure we've found an incredible John Stewart."
"Firefly" and "The Rookie" actor Nathan Fillion will appear in 2025's "Superman" movie as Guy Gardner, another member of the Green Lantern Corps.
So it's possible that he'll also show up in the "Lanterns" TV series, given that he works for the same organization as Pierre and Chandler's characters.