For decades, “Green Lantern” has meant one thing on screen: a giant CGI light show, a ring-powered space opera stuffed with aliens and VFX (think the awful 2011 Ryan Reynolds-starring movie). “Lanterns,” the new DC Studios series for HBO, is explicitly trying to be the opposite of that. The first teaser revealed today offers a distinctly different image: two tired cops — one veteran, one rookie — standing over a body in flyover country, arguing about what the ring should actually be used for.
The show is an HBO Original production in association with Warner Bros. Television and DC Studios, based on the iconic DC title ‘Green Lantern.’” The logline is blunt and follows new recruit John Stewart and Lantern legend Hal Jordan, two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.” That’s DC Studios co-Chief James Gunn and company taking a franchise most people associate with glowing space armor and parking it in Nebraska, on purpose.
Casting is built to lean into that dynamic. Fresh off an intense turn in “Rebel Ridge,” Aaron Pierre plays Stewart, the recruit being groomed as Hal’s replacement, while Kyle Chandler (“Bloodline”) steps in as Jordan, the legendary Green Lantern whose whole vibe is “Chuck Yeager with a power battery” — heroic, blunt, and wary of whoever comes next. They’re joined by Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, and Ulrich Thomsen, fleshing out the small-town and institutional orbit this murder mystery will slice through.
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Behind the scenes, showrunner Chris Mundy is treating this like a prestige crime show first, and a superhero show second. In HBO’s production notes, he says their driving force has been to deliver “a layered drama – rooted in nuanced storytelling and rich world building – that balances tension and mystery with honest, authentic emotion,” aiming for something “timeless and grounded without sacrificing the magic of the source material.” Mundy co-created the series with Damon Lindelof (“Watchmen”) and Tom King (also a writer on “Supergirl”), with James Hawes (“The Amateur”) directing the first two episodes and Stephen Williams (“Watchmen,” “Lost”), Geeta Vasant Patel (“Meet The Patels”), and Alik Sakharov (“The Ends Beginning”) also on deck to helm
DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn has been out front trying to explain what “grounded” actually means here. He’s called “Lanterns” “a very real show… taking this outlandish concept of space cops with magic rings and putting it in as close to reality as it can possibly be,” and elsewhere praised the scripts as “very grounded, very believable, very real… very human, adult, and wonderful.” He’s also been clear this series is “really important in setting up things” across the wider DCU Chapter One: Gods and Monsters, which is why the Hal–John dynamic has to feel like more than fan-service casting.
For now, the trailer’s job is simple: stake out “Lanterns” as an HBO detective show that happens to be about two Green Lanterns, one wondering if he’s at the end of the line and the other being pushed to prove he deserves the ring. If the footage matches the pitch, it won’t just be about who solves the murder in the middle of nowhere — it’ll be about whether the rookie convinces the old legend to trust him with the light.
The DC Studios/Warner Bros. Television series will debut this August. Watch the first teaser trailer below.
