The last few months have been wild for Warner Bros. as the company has seen major shake-ups and changes that include the removal of over 30 animated titles as they make their way to merge of HBO Max and Discovery+, merging Cartoon Network and Warner Animation into a single studio, numerous release date changes for projects in the DCEU, and the recent announcement that James Gunn and Peter Safran will serve as co-CEO of DC Studios. The latest change is for the long in development Green Lantern series, as it has been revealed in a new report that the series is set to be redeveloped as a major part of the show’s staff steps away from the project.
The new report comes from The Hollywood Reporter, who are saying that the series will be changing both its lead characters and its showrunner and writer. Seth Grahame-Smith was attached to serve as the series showrunner and writer a year following the show’s first announcement in 2019 and had written a full eight-episode season of TV for the previous iteration of the show. Sources tell THR that Grahame-Smith decided to leave the project after he had stuck around through several regime changes at all levels of the company from Warner Bros., HBO Max, and most recently DC Comics. The series was originally slated to follow Guy Gardner and Alan Scott with Finn Wittrock and Jeremy Irvine having already been cast for the two respective roles.
The decision to change the series focus is put down to the recent departure of former President of DC Films, Walter Hamada, with that being seen as a chance to start the series over from scratch and build it around Stewart. THR is clear to note that this creative overhaul has not been done due to the recent hiring of Gunn and Safran, as the two do not start their new jobs at the company until November 1. Executive producer Berlanti is still set to be attached to the project and via his Berlanti Productions. The show is set to have a much smaller budget compared to what it was originally touted to have, with Berlanti describing it as the “biggest DC show ever made” in October 2019. Insiders said that it would have been the most expensive show that DC had ever made with a budget estimated in the $120 million range. The show was originally being fast-tracked and was supposed to start shooting in 2019. The series is now a part of a script-to-series commitment and will follow a slower and more traditional HBO development track.
While the show will be much smaller than previously anticipated, it is a project that at the very least survived the change of plans, something that cannot be said for several other projects have fallen victim to Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav‘s cost-saving strategies. These casualties include the J.J. Abram’s sci-fi series Demimondeand fellow Berlanti-produced anthology series Strange Adventures, which also had Kevin Smith attached to also produce. The change in strategy at the company has also been cited as the reason behind the cancellation of Scoob!: Holiday Haunt, the sequel film to 2020’s Scoob! as well as the high-profile cancellation of the live-action Batgirl film starring Leslie Grace.
It is currently unknown when Green Lantern will be making its way to HBO Max. A new logline for the series has not yet been determined as the project is back to being in early development.
via Collider