The “Green Lantern” series starts from scratch: goodbye to his showrunner and his scripts, and change his character

Green Lantern is the pseudonym of several DC heroes, but whoever wears the ring, the concept has a large number of fans waiting for a new project more worthy of the character. In 2019 it became official that an HBO Max series about the superhero was in the works, but it received major creative changes in its production. He would initially tell the story of the characters Guy Gardner and Alan Scott and had even cast the lead actors, Finn Wittrock and Jeremy Irvine respectively. Now the series will focus on John Stewart, one of DC’s first black superheroes.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that, as part of the creative changes, series writer and showrunner Seth Grahame-Smith has left the project. Grahame-Smith had finished the entire script for an entire eight-episode season that ultimately won’t come true. Sources close to The Hollywood Reporter indicate that he has decided to leave the project after witnessing a major series of power shifts in HBO Max, the Warner Bros. Television production and now DC Comics.

Originally, the producers ruled out the idea of ​​focusing on John Stewart, seeing the series as a story of Alan Scott, the first Green Lantern, Guy Gardner and more Green Lanterns., from the most beloved of comics to ever seen. With the recent departure of Walter Hamada, former president of DC Films, they decided to start from scratch and build the plot around John Stewart, a character who first appeared in the early 1970s and inspired by the late actor Sidney Poitier. Interestingly, the new direction that “Green Lantern” will follow is unrelated to James Gunn and Peter Safran’s rise to leadership of DC Studios.

Of the original “Green Lantern” creative team the only one that continues is executive producer Greg Berlanti and his production company. When HBO announced the series’ existence in 2019, the producer described it as “the greatest DC series ever made”. At the time it was rumored that it would be the most expensive series in the history of DC and HBO Max, costing around $ 120 million. But, following David Zaslav’s rise to the top of Warner Bros. Discovery and his $ 3 billion savings policy, the series’ budget is expected to drop considerably.

It has been explained from Warner Bros. Discovery that they expect to earn about $ 2 billion in tax breaks related to their content. Old “Green Lantern” scripts are believed to be included there, sources from The Hollywood Reporter point out the price of what it could cost was what motivated them to get rid of Grahame-Smith’s original scripts, it had nothing to do with the quality of the story.

There is still hope

Wittrock and Irvine, the actors who would have given life to the protagonists of the series, are currently not part of the new version of ‘Green Lantern’. The Hollywood Reporter indicates that Berlanti wants to work with both actors, as long as the history of the project allows and serves to advance. When Wittrock and Irvine were cast for their roles in the spring of 2021 and series production was going well, filming was due to begin the same year. Now the project, which has returned to initial development, will have quieter production. There is still no initial description of the story he will tell.