While John Stewart is set to make his DCU debut in the upcoming Lanterns, played by Aaron Pierre, the Green Lantern will soon be reappearing in next year's quasi-Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow.
But, by the sounds of things, showrunner Chris Mundy had the leeway to take Lanterns wherever he wanted to go, despite the wider universe being at play.
"We weren't tasked with having any specific landing point, which was great for us because it gave us freedom to land the story where we wanted to land the story," Mundy told SFX magazine. "But John will be part of the greater DC Universe. That was good for us to know. And where we land him is somewhere that they're happy with us landing him and somewhere they can take him, if they want."
So far, Lanterns looks more like a gritty detective drama than a superhero show, with the buddy cop dynamic between Stewart and Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan at its heart. But elsewhere in the SFX piece, Mundy hints that the grounded DC show might go cosmic: "We'd be stupid not to use everything that you can do inside the Green Lantern universe."
Man of Tomorrow, meanwhile, will see Superman forced to team up with Lex Luthor to take on Brainiac.
Along with Pierre and Chandler, the Lanterns cast also features Laura Linney, Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner, and Ulrich Thomsen as Sinestro.
"Our show is in a lot of ways about replacement – when should someone step aside and when is it time for the next person to take the reins?" Mundy said back in 2025. "That push and pull between those two characters is really important. So much of the power that John has is by not taking the bait, understanding that you lose your power if you’re yelling and screaming."
Lanterns arrives on August 16. In the meantime, keep up to date with everything else the DCU has in store with our guide to all the upcoming DC movies and TV shows.
