Superman is Clark Kent and Batman is Bruce Wayne, but since the very beginning Green Lantern has been a title, and the Lanterns are legion. DC has now cast a second Lantern for its upcoming HBO Max series: the original Green Lantern, Alan Scott.
Actor Jeremy Irvine announced on Instagram this week that he’ll be stepping into the role of Alan Scott. Scott was the very first Green Lantern, debuting in July 1940. In the original story, Scott was a railroad engineer who finds a magical lantern. Scott has come and gone in the comics over the years, but in 2012 the character came out as gay, and in that timeline was the head of a media empire. In the HBO Max series, he’ll be playing a closeted gay FBI agent in the year 1941, according to TVLine. While Scott has appeared in Smallville and Stargirl, this will be the first live-action appearance that deals with his sexual orientation.
HBO Max announced the series in 2019. Just last month, movement began on the series once again as the studio cast Finn Wittrock as Green Lantern Guy Gardner. Gardner first appeared in 1968, the third primary Green Lantern after Alan Scott and Hal Jordan, though Scott wasn’t part of the Green Lantern Corps, and his ring’s power came from regular old magic instead of the Central Power Battery of Oa.
As yet uncast Lanterns include Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz; more popular Lanterns Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and Kyle Rayner have not yet been mentioned in association with Green Lantern. Marc Guggenheim and Seth Grahame-Smith are co-writing the ten-episode show, and Grahme-Smith will serve as showrunner. Arrowverse mastermind Greg Berlanti is also executive producing. This won’t be Grahame-Smith’s first outing with the Lanterns, either, as he wrote the 2011 Green Lantern film starring Ryan Reynolds, who just watched the movie for the first time this winter.
Green Lantern does not yet have a premiere date.
