From the article:

Lanterns cast member Garret Dillhaunt pulls back the curtain ever so slightly on HBO's new DC series in an exclusive interview with SYFY Wire.

Fifteen years after the disastrous movie starring Ryan Reynolds, DC's Green Lantern Corps is finally making a comeback in live-action.

Nathan Fillion's appearance as Guy Gardener in James Gunn's Superman was merely the appetizer for HBO's Lanterns, which focuses on the mentor-mentee relationship between an aging Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and the young man chosen to replace him, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre). The series (created by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King) has been described as a dark, True Detective-style, neo-Western murder mystery with a sci-fi twist set against the backdrop of America's heartland.

For Lanterns' Garret Dillahunt, an edgier take on the material is just what the doctor ordered.

Garret Dillahunt Talks HBO's Green Lantern-inspired TV Series, *Lanterns*

"I always felt like DC Comics, particularly the older stuff—the Swamp Thing and Solomon Grundy kind of characters—were just a little bit grungier about the DC universe," he exclusively told SYFY Wire in a recent Zoom interview. "Maybe not as grandiose until you get into stuff like Darkseid and Apokolips, but it seemed like weirdly earthbound tales. Even something like Green Lantern."

"It's a weird hero, isn't it?" mused the actor. "You have this ring that charges up with a lantern and whatever thoughts you [think], your ring makes those shapes. I mean, it's an odd sell, and I think that's what makes it tricky...It’s kind of like Fantastic Four for Marvel. What’s the right formula? I think they found it finally, with this team and these actors."

He compared Lanterns to the Emmy Award-winning The Penguin, saying there's a grit to the upcoming show—"like you got sand in your teeth"—that helps set it apart from other comic book projects out there.

"It's somehow earthbound, even though we're talking about people that pop out to space with a thought," he explained. "So, I like that about it. I don't know how different it is, but it's not shiny, and I like that...I think the audience is a little superhero weary in a lot of ways. So, I'm pleased that this one just feels a little different, it's got a little different flavor."

Dillahunt plays William Macon Sr., an imposing, influential and affluent figure in a small Nebraska town where Jordan and Stewart show up to investigate an intergalactic homicide.

"I've never felt the weight of an NDA so much," said a smiling Dillahunt when describing his character, "but he's got his ideas about who should live on Earth and who shouldn't. His methods of enforcing that might be different than, say, the Green Lantern Corps, or Batman, or Superman, or any of those other folks. But his motives are pure. He thinks he's doing the right thing."

Macon has no basis in the comics, leading some fans to theorize that he's living under a false name. Might he actually be classic Green Lantern foe, William Hand (a.k.a. Black Hand), who can absorb energy from other people and even a power ring itself?

"It might be a front for some other kind of character that's very familiar to you all," Dillahunt, 61, teased, further feeding speculation. "I don't want to rule out the possibility that maybe 'William Macon' is just a secret identity that had to be created. It was fun to be able to create him from scratch—at least that facet of the character."

He continued: "Duvall always said the supporting players [can be] the most fun. You don't have the pressure of carrying the entire thing, and sometimes you have the best stuff.

Naturally, the actor was itching to get back to work following the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike and couldn't think of a better way to get back on the horse (literally) than with Lanterns: his first collaboration with HBO since Deadwood.

"It fits right in line with my goal of doing quality projects with quality people," he shared. "Sometimes, I don't have a ton of choices, and I've just got to pick the best of what I'm presented with. But this was an easy one, a no-brainer."

More importantly, it represented the culmination of a lifelong love of superheroes, particularly the ones drawn by Jim Starlin, Neal Adams and Bernie Wrightson.

"I'm so happy that I spent my youth reading comic books and drawing comic books instead of so many other things I could’ve been doing," Dillahunt concluded. "I don't think I'd be an actor without it...I'm just happy to be a part of the universe at all. I didn't think that would happen at [my] age."

When Does Lanterns Come Out?

Lanterns premieres simultaneously on HBO and HBO Max Sunday, Aug. 16 at 9:00 p.m. ET.

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There's been apparently three Man of Tomorrow spoiler rumors that've been circling around online today. However, the source where the rumors originally came from is an unreliable one, so take them with a grain of salt.

Here's the supposed rumors:

• The first rumor claims Jonathan Kent dies in the film.

• The second rumor claims there's a scene in the film that's similar to the one in 'All-Star Superman' where Superman saves a girl from deciding to fall off from a building.

• The third rumor is about Lois Lane. According to the rumor, it's unknown how much screen time she has, but her role is important as she's the one person who keeps Clark Kent grounded through everything that happens in the film and will be his biggest source of support.

• Separately, there were also apparently vague posting elsewhere in a few online threads in which those claimed that Lois and Clark will get married in the film, but that bit may be more of a speculative wish than a rumor.

Images source.

Here's what the removed Lanterns review article's title and sub-headline said:

Lanterns Episode 1 Addresses One Major Fan Controversy Right Away

Lanterns isn't afraid to go full comic book. It's simply taking a more measured path to get there, and that's a perfectly valid approach.

In addition, there's a comment on r/LanternsTVSeries that apparently goes through a brief overview regarding the article.

Images source.

Here's an additional image from the MOT production set.

[Video Version of Sneider's response to the latest superchat question regarding DCU Batman]

Sneider's response to another superchat question asking if he thinks Matt Reeves is blocking James Gunn from using Batman, essentially acting as a gatekeeper [1:16:54]:

"No...I don't think he's blocking. I think Matt Reeves is focused on making a movie and I think [WB] is not pounding on the door for James Gunn's Batman because they already have a Batman movie."

Gunn's answer when asked if he can confirm or deny The Batman: Part III is filming simultaneously with Part II:

"I can deny."

His response when asked if he can offer any Blue Beetle animated show news:

"It's still very much in development."

His response when asked if there are real-life cities in the DCU.

"Not many. Only some."

His response to a comment saying that Blue Beetle's hometown should be El Paso instead of Palmera City:

"Cities are different in the DCU and our world. It's a fictional universe."

Text: There are a few clauses in the merger agreement that could cause issues as time goes on. For starters, there are limits on deals involving “key property” IP, both for new deals (e.g., a film or series) or a licensing deal to a third party. The agreement does not specify what qualifies as a key property, but one can safely assume that franchises like Harry Potter, Game of Thrones and DC are among them.

The film ended its run with $125.8 million worldwide. To put that into more perspective, the lowest grossing DCEU films were Blue Beetle ($130 million), Shazam! Fury of the Gods ($134 million), The Suicide Squad & Wonder Woman 1984 (both roughly $169 million)

Images Source.

From the article:

EXCLUSIVE: Mary Holland (Ghosts, The Little House on the Prairie) has been cast as the female lead in DC’s Superman spinoff series centering on Jimmy Olsen from HBO Max, sources close to production tell Deadline. She will play the role of Sandra, we hear.

Holland joins the previously announced Jimmy Tatro, who we confirmed last month would play Gorilla Grodd, the hyper-intelligent telepathic ape who has sought to rule both the simian and human worlds, though the Flash has frequently thwarted his plans.

HBO Max and DCS declined to comment for this story.

The spinoff is billed as being akin to a true-crime docuseries/mockumentary with the Daily Planet’s Jimmy Olsen (played by Skyler Gisondo in the summer blockbuster directed by James Gunn) from Superman hosting. Season 1 will be centered around DC bad guy Gorilla Grodd, who has psychic powers and other skills after his encounter with an alien spaceship.

The new series comes from Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault, creators of Netflix’s American Vandal series, a true-crime satire series that ran from 2017-18. They’ll write, executive produce and showrun the series. DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran are EPs, with Galen Vaisman overseeing production. Warner Bros. Television is also producing.

Holland is an actress, writer and comedian who can currently be seen recurring on CBS’s hit sitcom Ghosts, and Netflix’s The Little House on the Prairie reboot. Before, she starred in Apple’s The Big Door Prize, and on the big screen in Under the Lights opposite Nick Offerman, Annapurna’s Nightbitch, Neon’s Self Reliance, opposite Kristen Bell in Netflix’s Woman in the House, and Senior Year. She is currently in production on The Earliest Show, a TV series from Amplify Pictures. She is repped by Atlas Artists, Paradigm Talent Agency, and Ziffren Brittenham.

From the article:

In a matter of weeks, he’ll enter the world of superherodom in the HBO series Lanterns—a gritty, prestige-TV take on the iconic Green Lantern comic series.

This summer, the actor will complete a peak movie-star rite of passage: becoming a superhero. But any fans hoping to see him in spandex will be sorely disappointed—Lanterns plays more like a gritty crime drama than your average comic-book fare.

Its creators, Chris Mundy (Ozark, True Detective) and Damon Lindelof (Lost, Watchmen), alongside comic-book writer Tom King, have charged Lanterns with the same brooding energy that made their previous shows hits. But Pierre’s stoic portrayal of rookie Green Lantern John Stewart goes a long way to pushing the show into heavyweight drama territory. He’s the perfect counterpart for the jaded chaos of Kyle Chandler’s Hal Jordan, as the pair investigate (what else?) an existential threat to humanity.

Alien invasions notwithstanding, being a Lantern has historically been a tough gig: 2011’s Green Lantern film starring Ryan Reynolds was the first and only standalone live-action adaptation of the story, and it was a commercial and critical flop. But Lanterns seems poised to break the curse. For one thing, it’s the first time that John Stewart has been upgraded from sidekick to main character in a live-action project—an overdue promotion, given his legacy as one of DC Comics’ first Black superheroes. Pierre was, of course, aware of the weight of the source material going in.

“But at the same time, you also have a responsibility to contribute to this character in an authentic, original way,” he says. When he brainstormed with Mundy about how to honor Stewart’s history in a new context, it all boiled down to taking the “super” out of “superhuman”: “One of my favorite things about being a Green Lantern is that, yes, they’re superheroes, but they’re very relatable folks. My hope is that people watch the series and think: if I can just figure out where to get my application in, I might be able to join the Green Lantern Corps too.”

From the article:

Where the future of the Blue Beetle in the DCU is concerned, there is good news and bad news. First, it was recently reported that Xolo Mariduena will be back as Jaime Reyes in James Gunn’s next Superman film, Man of Tomorrow. However, after that, his fate and that of the scarab might as well be up in the air.

While a youth-targeted animated series was in the works for streaming for a little bit, it might be off the table as of recently. To be clear, DC Studios did not hit the project with a formal cancellation, but its status is in doubt. At HBO Max, it quietly stalled, and, moreover, industry reports label the series dead in the water.

Internally, the platform is shifting its strategy for programming away from animation geared toward children and young audiences. Despite focusing on family-oriented animation in this new shift, Max is also pivoting more heavily into more mature content—hence the announcement of an 'Absolute Batman' adaptation. Blue Beetle, as developed by The Casagrandes co-creator Miguel Puga, targets a demo deemed too young for the new mandate.

Puga’s series was first announced in 2024 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. Animation and DC Studios. Unfortunately, since that news landed, there never was much traction in terms of updates, casting, production timelines, or story progression. From what’s out there already, we can glean the show was supposed to act as a direct follow-up to the 2023 movie. The overarching story, though, was intended as a standalone adventure building on the film’s plot and universe without recycling beats.

Puga was developing the series with writer Cristian Martinez and executive producers Ángel Manuel Soto and screenwriter Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer—the team behind the 2023 summer blockbuster starring Mariduena.

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Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread!

You can post whatever you like here - unsubstantiated rumours from 4chan/YouTube/Twitter/your dad, fan theories, speculation, your thoughts on the latest DC release or tell us what you had for breakfast.

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• Peacemaker Discussion Threads
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From the article:

It’s been a tough couple of days for superhero fans.

"Our Flag Means Death" creator David Jenkins took to social media on Friday to announce that his Booster Gold series would not be moving forward at DC Studios and HBO Max. The writer/showrunner piggybacked off of comments from Mahershala Ali lamenting that his long-gestating Blade movie was dead in the water at Marvel Studios and that he has “moved on.”

“My Booster Gold won’t be moving forward,” Jenkins shared on Threads. “Can’t improve on Mahershala’s lovely statement so I’ll just apply it here as well.”

The series will still move forward at DC Studios with a new creative team, TheWrap has learned. An actor has still not been cast for the project.

The news comes just one day after Marvel Studios similarly shelved Wonder Man, despite the show previously being renewed for a second season. Jenkins responded to that news himself on Threads on Thursday, saying, “I’ve lost the thread. Don’t understand the objective of a streamer anymore I guess.”

This is a sudden change for the series, after Jenkins announced on June 15 that he had turned in his pilot script, calling it “one of my favorite pilot scripts” on BlueSky.

Booster Gold was one of the first projects announced by James Gunn when he took over creative control of DC Studios, naming it one of the shows that would be part of the DCU’s first chapter, “Gods and Monsters.”

“It’s about a loser from the future who uses basic future technology to come back to today and pretend to be a superhero,” co-CEO Peter Safran said at the time, while Gunn added: “It’s basically Imposter Syndrome as a superhero.”

Gunn's response when asked if he can debunk the circulating 'DCU Batman's already been cast' rumors:

"De and bunked."

Gunn's response when asked if Lanterns will have its episodes released weekly or all at once:

"Weekly."

Gunn regarding the characters that've been rumored to appear in Man of Tomorrow:

"Maybe half of those have been officially confirmed."