It’s frankly shocking that the Green Lantern hasn’t gotten a truly stellar live-action adaptation yet. Of course, DC certainly tried with 2011’s Green Lantern, one of the most infamous comic book films of all time that really shouldn’t have been the disaster that it was. It had a fantastic action filmmaker in Casino Royale (2006) director Marin Campbell, an extremely talented cast led by future Deadpool Ryan Reynolds, and rich source material Alas, the movie is remembered as a critical and financial failure, with nearly everyone who was a part of the film’s production treating it as a practical joke in their careers. Since then, apart from a brief cameo from a Green Lantern Corps member in Justice League (2017), we haven’t seen the famous green ring appear in any other DC live-action project since the first film.
Green Lantern has, however, found far more success in television, nearly all of them being animated like the legendary Justice League (2001-2004) series and the fan-favorite Green Lantern: The Animated Series (2011-2013). With the many wielders of the Green Lantern ring seemingly feeling much more comfortable on the small screen, it makes sense that new DC Studios CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran have opted to use the serialized television format to bring the Green Lanterns into their new DC Universe. Simply titled Lanterns, the plural use of the word is deliberate as the show will star not one, but two heroes who share the title of Green Lantern. Those two people are Hal Jordan, the original human Green Lantern Corp member and the one we follow in the 2011 film as well as Green Lantern: The Animated Series, and John Stewart, the Green Lantern best known as the roster member seen in both Justice League and its sequel series Justice League Unlimited (2004-2006).
The second live-action series in Gunn and Safran’s recently announced “Gods and Monsters” phase, the ambitious new show will see the two Lanterns (and perhaps a few more) embark on a detective story that will result in major consequences for the rest of the DCU. A buddy-cop-style Green Lantern show has been in on-and-off development for a very long time and has been shrouded in secrecy for that same timeframe. With Gunn and Safran now finally kicking the show’s production into gear, it’s only a matter of time until we learn more about the anticipated project. Until then, here is everything we know so far about Lanterns.