Lanterns Series Premieres Sunday
Is this a Make or Break for James Gunn and D.C.?
It’s been diminishing returns for James Gunn’s D.C. universe so far. From a respectable start with Superman but a crash and burn with Supergirl and Clayface is expected to make modest earnings. It could be argued that this Lanterns series MUST BE a homerun. Otherwise, Gunn could start losing D.C. fans. The Green Lantern is one of the big characters that has yet to have a respectable movie or tv show made. And since Gunn can’t touch Batman as long as Matt Reeves is bringing in cash and no Wonder Woman movie in site, Lanterns has a lot riding on it. Showrunner Chris Mundy has promised to tap the full mythos, starting with a grounded tone that expands outward. It’s good that he said that because up until now the trailers of them fighting in a small country town haven’t instilled a great amount of confidence that we would see the full mythos. After Damon Lindelof, who is co-creating Lanterns with Mundy and Tom King, said Green was stupid, fans have been holding their collective breath.
Hopefully we won’t be holding our breath for long. The most recent trailer does show Green and Mundy’s promise of a full mythos now that we’ve seen Sinestro played by Ulrich Thomsen. James Gunn also confirmed that every episode of LANTERNS will run close to an hour, a full season of roughly eight hours. This total would make Lanterns the longest project in the DCU, a record that puts it ahead of every film and season the studio has released so far. This could be good news if the extra time is filled with cool stuff Comic and normie DC fans love, but today’s streaming tends to lean toward extra unnecessary scenes to get them to their 8 episodes. See Spider Noir as an example. But a lot of streaming shows are doing this where it could have been cut down to 4 or 5 hours instead of 8.
If Lanterns fails to get fans excited, Gunn may have a mutiny on his hands. For his and the hope of everyone who eventually wants to get to Justice League, Lanterns is a huge hit.
The eight-episode drama stars Aaron Pierre as rookie John Stewart and Kyle Chandler as veteran Hal Jordan, hopefully blending gritty Earth-based intrigue with cosmic Green Lantern lore premieres Sunday, August 16 at 9 p.m. EDT on HBO channels and streams on HBO Max, with the first episode running about an hour amid adult content and violence.
