Green Lantern showrunner Seth Grahame-Smith has chosen to walk away after DC and HBO Max decided to take the series in a new direction, the Hollywood Reporter writes.
The series, which has been in development for three years, will now center around John Stewart, the second Black superhero to appear in DC Comics. The course change comes after many aspects of the show, as it was originally constituted, were already put in place. Finn Wittrock (American Horror Story, Deep Water) and Jeremy Irvine (War Horse) had been cast to play Guy Gardner and Alan Scott, respectively. Grahame-Smith (The Lego Batman Movie) also finished writing scripts for the entire eight-episode first season. He was announced as the showrunner and writer in 2020.
Sources tell THR that DC opted to hit the reset button with the Green Lantern series and focus on Stewart, who was previously considered to be “off the table to producers,” until the departure of DC Films head Walter Hamada this month. James Gunn and producer Peter Safran, who have been tapped to oversee the newly-formed DC Studios division, had nothing to do with the direction of the show since they do not assume their roles until next week.
In light of Black Adam earning $140 million worldwide in its opening weekend and Henry Cavill confirming he’ll reprise his role as Superman for at least one standalone movie, it seems as though things are starting to look up for DC.