HBO Max Saving Its Most-Anticipated DC Project From Cancellation?
It looks like a show that was facing cancellation is now going to be saved on HBO Max and it's for the better.
It’s been something of a bloodbath over at DC over the last week or so with some high-profile projects getting the ax and some smaller productions sent to the trash bin as well. There’s a massive shakeup happening with Warner Bros right now, especially where DC and HBO Max are concerned calling into question what is happening with almost everything in that universe of comic book movies and television shows. But there is one anticipated series, maybe one of their biggest, that could be avoiding the cancel effect before it’s all said and done. It looks like Green Lantern is still moving forward despite word otherwise that it might be headed to the scrap heap. If true this would represent at least some positive HBO Max news where the DCEU is concerned.
The Hollywood Reporter had it in an article about Kevin Smith’s Strange Adventures being canceled on HBO Max that Green Lantern looks like it is still in the works. Smith had discussed on his Hollywood Babble-On podcast that the anthology series Strange Adventures was going to be no more, likely because of the cost associated with producing such a series. But THR continued on with their story that Green Lantern was safe, for now, and the lack of news on that front for the show was more because significant time and care had to go into a series. This was because it was going to need a significant special effects lift to pull off correctly.
The Green Lantern HBO Max series had already cast Finn Wittrock and Jeremy Irvine in the leads. They are set to play Guy Gardner and Alan Scott respectively. Scott was the first Green Lantern ringbearer for DC and Gardner came two iterations after, following Hal Jordan. There is word that versions of Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz will also be in the series which has plans to span multiple generations of the Lantern Corps. It’s a massive undertaking and one that requires a deft touch to get done correctly. We already saw something of a mess of it made the first time around with Ryan Reynolds taking on Hal Jordan in the big screen adaptation.
The reason for the worry around Green Lantern on HBO Max comes from the high-profile cancellations happening within the DCEU right now thanks to a reshuffling of the deck and a new vision being proposed for the whole studio. Last week, WB announced they were scrapping Batgirl despite the movie having already been made and the studio spending nearly $100 million dollars on it. It was set to star Leslie Grace in the lead role while also bringing in Michael Keaton as Batman among other characters. But the studio is now passing it off as a tax write-off, choosing to make only blockbusters from now on and moving forward with a different plan.
For now, though it looks like HBO Max’s Green Lantern still falls into the marketable blockbuster category, even for a series and that could be good news. We’ve been waiting years for them to get this character and group of characters right on both the big and small screen.
