DC's GREEN LANTERN HBO Max Series is Being Redeveloped with John Stewart as The Lead Character

Executive producer Greg Berlanti has been developing a Green Lantern series for HBO Max for quite some time, and it looks like things are going to take a little bit longer. It’s recently been revealed that the project, which has been in the works since 2019 is going to be shifting gears and is being redeveloped with a whole new vision in mind.

Since the beginning of the project, for some reason, the studio wouldn’t allow the show to use the John Stewart version of Green Lantern. So, the original plan was to have the series revolve around Guy Gardner and Alan Scott and they had already cast Finn Wittrock (Ratched) and Jeremy Irvine (Treadstone) in those roles.

Well, things have changed and now the series will revolve around John Stewart, which is one of the best and more popular versions of Green Lantern. So, this is great news for fans!

According to THR, Seth Grahame-Smith, who signed on as writer and showrunner a year after Green Lantern was announced, ended up leaving the project on his own terms after all of the regime changes at HBO Max, its parent company, producers Warner Bros. Television and now DC Comics. With all of those changes, it seems like it would have been a nightmare to get any work done.

It’s explained that the “decision to refocus Green Lantern arrives at a pivotal time for DC. 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.”

It’s also noted in the report that this Green Lantern creative overhaul has nothing to do with the news of James Gunn and Peter Safran taking creative control over DC Studios. This was all in the works prior to the announcement and their involvement.

When HBO Max initially announced the plans for Green Lantern, Berlanti described it as the “biggest DC show ever made,” with plans for the series to go to space. It was also supposed to be the most expensive show DC ever made and easily the largest for HBO Max with a budget estimated in the $120 million range.

It’s now being reported that the budget of the show is expected to be significantly less as HBO Max, under David Zaslav’s combined Warner Bros. Discovery, is focusing on right-sizing its various assets and they don’t want to spend more money than they have to.

What do you think about this new direction for DC’s Green Lantern series?