HBO Max has given the greenlight to Green Lantern, a new live action adaptation of the DC Comics superhero with a ten episode series order.
Novelist-turned-screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith will head up the show’s creative direction as showrunner. Additionally, he will co-write the series’ pilot episode with Greg Guggenheim, co-creator of DC shows Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow over on the CW. The series is coming from Greg Berlanti’s production house, which is responsible for all of the DC Comics-originated CW shows, as well as Stargirl, which recently immigrated from the DC Universe streaming app to HBO Max.
For the uninitiated, the Green Lanterns are a force of universal peacekeepers, each one assigned a sector of space to patrol by the Guardians of the Universe – they named themselves – who reside on the planet Oa. Their chief tool/weapon is a ring that holds an energy that can allow its wearer to mold it into any type of shape or object their will can create. Earth has been home to a number of wielders of a Green Lantern ring, most notably Hal Jordan, whom has been the featured hero of most of the Green Lantern comic book runs.
According to the Hollywood Reporter –
The makers are describing the show as a saga spanning decades and galaxies and will feature a host of Green Lanterns, the galactic police officers that patrol the known and unknown universe. The show will focus on Earth-centric Lanterns Guy Gardner, Jessica Cruz, Simon Baz, and Alan Scott and will also have alien Lanterns such as fan-favorite Kilowog, as well as Sinestro, a former Lantern now turned villain.
Interestingly, the above paragraph makes no mention of Green Lantern Hal Jordan, which opens up the door to all kinds of speculation as to why.
Warners has been trying to turn the Green Lantern comics mythos into a live action franchise for some time. They initially tried in 2011 with a live action film starring Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan, though that failed to ignite the box office. A Green Lantern Corps movie has been in development for their DC Extended Universe film franchise with comics writer Geoff Johns reportedly set to turn in a script for that late last year. It is not known if that project is still in development or if it has been dropped in favor of the HBO series.
This is not the first time that Grahame-Smith has been engaged to work on a DC Comics property for Warner Brothers. Back in 2015, he was brought on to write and direct the studio’s planned The Flash movie, but left six months later over creative differences. He did write the animated Lego Batman Movie.
There is no premier date announced for Green Lantern.
