“Excited that Lanterns is now in production,” Gunn wrote on Instagram, “DC Studios’ new show for HBO and Max, from creators Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King.”
Gunn called the show “something really special.”
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Lanterns emerged from a lengthy development process; at one point DC and Warner Bros. nearly made an entirely different Green Lantern TV series with producers Greg Berlanti, Seth Grahame-Smith, and Marc Guggenheim. That show would have focused on lesser-known Green Lantern heroes, and was expected to star Finn Wittrock as Guy Gardner.
That Green Lantern show was first announced in 2019, and was developed all through the early 2020s. Plans changed significantly after Gunn joined DC as its no co-CEO with Peter Safran in 2022. With the old DC Extended Universe retired and a new DC Universe beginning under Gunn and Safran, the Green Lantern show was now free to focus on whatever GL characters it wanted — hence the shift in focus to the two most popular characters in the franchise, Hal Jordan (the version of the character portrayed by Ryan Reynolds in the 2011 Green Lantern movie) and John Stewart (who has appeared in a variety of DC animated movies and shows, including Justice League and Justice League Unlimited).
Lanterns does not yet have a set premiere date on HBO and Max. The first season of the show is expected to consist of eight episodes.
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