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Three months out, HBO is finally starting to open up a bit more about its DC Studios series “Lanterns”.
Showrunner Chris Mundy sat down with EW this week to speak about the show, which adapts the “Green Lantern” comics into a gritty “True Detective”-style drama series involving a murder in the American heartland.
Mundy confirms the series has scenes set in both 2016 and 2026 with almost everything seen in the trailers so far taking place in that 2016 period.
In the series, Hal Jordan is convinced a shooting in Rushville, Nebraska was an alien incident – but the local Sheriff Kerry disagrees. His investigations take place simultaneously two months into training John Stewart, a second Lantern.
Hal is upset the Guardians of the Universe, the founders of the Green Lantern Corps, intervened to self-anoint John as a member of their order – marking the first time they’ve done that. Hal is also concerned he’s being “forced to train his own replacement”.
Munday says it’s “the old guard and the heir apparent. We lean into that tension quite a bit in that early time period”. When the time period jumps ahead to 2026, “that becomes a second mystery that we know is down the road for us. So eventually two different mysteries get worked out over the course of the show.”
The duelling timelines allow for a real examination of the core relationship: “It was less of a whodunnit as much as like, what happened and why? We think of this as a relationship show between John and Hal, and there’s a lot to unpack over the course of the eight episodes.”
Munday confirms Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner/Green Lantern from “Superman” will “be in the show a few different times” and is “fabulously obnoxious” when he is. The only other Lantern that is confirmed is Sinestro, who was Hal’s mentor.
In terms of visual effects, he says they are on the “medium-to-low side”, but even so, there’s plenty in it:
“There are a couple of episodes where they’re incredibly heavy, but from the jump, it’s a much more boots-on-the-ground approach. The aesthetic of the show — it’s supposed to be very grounded and real, so we’re shooting practically in places. We’re not heavily green-screened. It’s not like day glow in its presentation of anything. I think Green Lantern fans will not feel like we’ve somehow made a brown show of their green comic at all. It’s very much ‘we’re in the world,’ and then when we use the constructs, they’re what people would expect them to be.”
Munday also says: “There are a bunch of other people from the mythology, from the canon, but not the other Lanterns. We talk about them at different times, but they’re not gonna interact with them in the course of this season.”
Munday confirms “Lanterns” is designed as a multi-season show, and should they get the opportunity to do more, expect more cameos.
The post “Lanterns” Showrunner Talks Time Jump & VFX appeared first on Dark Horizons.
