This might not be the blackest night for Green Lantern fans — remember that movie? — but it sure ain’t the brightest day either.
After several years of development, it looks like the Green Lantern TV series that was supposed to be headed to HBO Max is instead going back to the drawing board. The Hollywood Reporter says the series has just lost its original showrunner, Seth Grahame-Smith, after he had already written scripts for eight episodes of the show. In addition the two actors previously cast in the series, Finn Wittrock as Guy Gardner and Jeremy Irvine as Alan Scott, are no longer with the series. While the show isn’t totally dead, that means it’s lost one of its main creators and both of its lead stars.
Per THR, the reason for the delay and the departures is a decision within Warner Bros. Discovery to totally rework the show to make it about a different Green Lantern character…
Sources say the character of John Stewart was off the table to producers who envisioned the show as focusing on the first Green Lantern, the openly gay Alan Scott, and Guy Gardner as well as a “multitude of other Lanterns — from comic book favorites to never-before-seen heroes.” With DC Comics topper Walter Hamada’s recent exit, a decision was made to start over and build the show around John Stewart, the character who first appeared in the early 1970s and was modeled after Sidney Poitier.
The news comes as all kinds of DC movies and shows seem to be up in the air following the merger of Warner Bros. and Discovery. The newly formed company has already canceled several DC projects, including a Batgirl movie that was already shot and a series titled Strange Adventures. In a few weeks, The Suicide Squad director James Gunn and producer Peter Safran will take over as the new heads of DC Films, although THR claims this latest delay for the Green Lantern series does not have to do with their recent hiring.
Poor Green Lantern. First the Ryan Reynolds movie, and now this. He’s one of DC’s most interesting characters. Why is he so hard to adapt to the big and small screens? It doesn’t make sense.
Actors Who Turned Down DC Roles
These major stars could have played some of your favorite DC Comics’ heroes onscreen. But they all said no for one reason or another.
