HBO Max Live-Action ‘Green Lantern’ Series Loses Head Writer Seth Grahame-Smith, Shifts Focus To John Stewart
JB Augustine
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The live-action Green Lantern series being developed for HBO Max is still happening but there is a significant update about its future. It won’t be taking the form it was originally pitched under, highlighting members of the Corps, and lost its lead writer.
Source: The Green Lantern Vol. 1 #2 “Darkness Visible” (2019), DC Comics. Words by Grant Morrison, art by Liam Sharp and Steve Oliff.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, Seth Grahame-Smith departed the project after completing eight scripts for the season that is no longer coming to pass, which likely means they won’t be used.
Grahame-Smith signed on to showrun Green Lantern a year after it was announced in 2019. Since then, there hasn’t been much information about the series’ progress except it was still in the cosmic pipeline and there may have been costumes fitted and made.
Source: The Green Lantern Vol. 1 #9 “The Day The Stars Fell Down!” (2019), DC Comics. Variant cover art by Jeff Dekal.
A detailed storyline was not known but rumors indicated there were going to be two separate timelines, one taking place in space and another on Earth. Lanterns alleged to appear ranged from Sinestro to Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz.
Of the Ring Slingers confirmed, Ratched star Finn Wittrock was cast as Guy Gardner and Treadstone’s Jeremy Irvine was set for the retconned and openly gay role of Alan Scott.
Both of these characters would’ve been a series focus alongside a rumored main character supposedly named Bree Jarta — a human woman of color who grew up on another planet.
Source: Green Lantern – Emerald Knights (2011), Warner Animation
Irvine wasn’t so sure the show was moving forward. “As far as I know, there’s not a firm start date yet,” he told Metro UK earlier this year.
Grahame-Smith, however, remained optimistic when he told Collider that the show’s scope was “gigantic.” He explained, “It has taken quite a bit of time to get to this point and it’s just a big, big undertaking. It’s going really well. All I can say is that it’s going really well and there are gonna be Green Lanterns in it, and it’s gonna be on HBO Max.”
Source: Green Lantern: First Flight (2009), Warner Bros. Animation
He was vague and putting on a happy face, it turns out, and apparently couldn’t handle the constant regime change at Warner Bros.’s multiple bureaus, HBO, and DC.
Walter Hamada leaving the latter’s film division may have been the final nail in the coffin of Grahame-Smith and producer Greg Berlanti’s vision, but it’s not the last word on the series as a whole.
Source: Green Lantern — Beware My Power Trailer, Warner Bros. Animation
THR says the project will shift gears and turn into a series centered around John Stewart who previously was either off limits due to his part in the Snyderverse or appearing later beside Hal Jordan as the series got going, according to conflicting reports.
Now it appears Stewart will fly solo as the primary Lantern of Sector 2814 whenever his first real live-action adventure reaches an undetermined start date.
Source: Hal Jordan and The Green Lantern Corps Vol. 1 #48 “Last Charge, Part One: Divide and Conquer” (2018), DC Comics. Words by Robert Venditti, art by Rafa Sandoval, Jordi Tarragona, Tomeu Morey, and Dave Sharpe.
Berlanti is still involved but Irvine and Wittrock are no longer committed contractually. The budget, meanwhile, once touted as the most expensive in DC history, is going to be a lot lower now, say THR’s sources.
NEXT: Grant Morrison Envisioned Hal Jordan As Pansexual During His Green Lantern Run
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