Back in 2021/22, before the hiring of James Gunn/Peter Safran at DC Studios, HBO Max was developing a TV series based on the DC Comics property “Green Lantern”.
“Arrow”-verse creator Greg Berlanti was going to executive-produce the series, which was to focus on Green Lantern characters Guy Gardner (played by Finn Wittrock) and Alan Scott (played by Jeremy Irvine).
Seth Grahame-Smith was set as writer and showrunner and had reportedly completed scripts for a full season of eight episodes when plans changed, and Grahame-Smith exited.
Regime changes at Warner Bros. Discovery, including the ousting of executive Walter Hamada and the ending of the DCEU, allowed the previously off-the-table options of Lanterns Hal Jordan and John Stewart to come back into play.
As a result, the show was set to be redeveloped around them. A few months later, Gunn & Safran’s DC slate was announced and with it came news of HBO’s “Lanterns” series which premieres this year.
In a recent interview with The Direct, Jeremy Irvine spoke about the collapse of the cancelled TV iteration of “Green Lantern” he was involved in, the version prior to the network’s retooling into “Lanterns”:
“I was so gutted. I think I slept on my floor that night when I found out that it wasn’t going to happen. In this industry, I always like to say that you get one kick in the nuts every year as an actor.
And that, I remember, that one being a being a hard one because I had some really good ideas for it, I thought… But you know, there’ll be something else where we get to incorporate it.
But it was just a really nice story; the way it was written was really cool. The scripts were great. And I hope one day it happens, and I hope whoever does it gets to have an amazing time.”
When asked about details of the series, he says he can’t talk about it but does hope to get to work with James Gunn someday:
“I think I probably signed more NDA’s for that than ever before in my life. So no, I’d rather not go to court with Mr. James Gunn. I’d quite like to work with him again.”
Irvine recently starred in the Starz spin-off “Outlander: Blood of my Blood,” and will shortly be seen as the lead in the film “Return to Silent Hill” which opens January 23rd.
