Summary
- Slip-up by Lanterns cast member reveals the potential inclusion of Sinestro Corps, causing concern over the show’s grounded tone.
- The presence of antagonistic Sinestro Corps members may detract from James Gunn’s vision for a realistic and gritty Lanterns show.
- Despite the potential truth in this slip-up, Lanterns still holds potential for DC Universe world building but must balance its tone for long-term success.
Lanterns has espoused an interesting direction for a show about two Green Lantern corpsmen, but a recent slip-up by one of the show’s stars might point to this approach not being as thorough as fans initially expected.
The Green Lantern is one of DC’s biggest characters, but has been absent from the big picture since the unfortunate live-action film adaptation of the character featuring Ryan Reynolds in 2011. This would change when a series for HBO went into production, eventually being picked up and written into the new DCU under James Gunn. The show has been pitched as a grounded and gritty detective series, and the DCU’s Lantern show being grounded is a good thing, as it gives the franchise its best bet at separating its Lanterns from the failures of the previous adaptations.
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In a recent interview about her new project Deli Boys, Lanterns cast member Poorna Jagannathan discussed her feelings on the direction for the upcoming DC show, but she might have let on a bit more than she intended. In an uploaded clip from mpmorales on X, fans can hear the momentary slip-up for themselves. “I couldn’t love the Green Lantern script any more… I always take my advice from the script. Like Deli Boys, Green Lantern is a superbly written script and my character is superbly drawn out…” she says. “It’s all the characters you love and you know… the Lanterns, and the Guardians, and the Sinestros. All that world is still intact and yet everyone is presented as hero and villain at the same time. And that’s what makes the writing so complex, and so layered and so beautiful.”
While this is almost entirely in line with what fans already expect from the show, one part of Jagannathan’s statement stands out as odd: she seemingly says ‘Sinestros’ in plural, potentially confirming the presence of the Sinestro corps. While Thaal Sinestro himself has long since been confirmed to appear, with fans eager to see what Ulrich Thomsen’s take on the character will look like, there’s been no word on the rest of the yellow lanterns in his Sinestro Corps making an appearance. While the show’s cast could have been expected to reflect that by now, the bulk of Sinestro’s corpsmen (and women) are aliens that could be brought to life via CGI or stuntmen in practical makeup and costumes. However, the potential appearance calls into question the grounded tone that those attached have adamantly upheld that Lanterns is going for.
This is in stark contrast to the concerns some fans had seeing the Lanterns’ first look image, which had people concerned that there would be too little going on in the show. While it’s unlikely that Gunn would actually greenlight a reskinned HBO detective show like some of the complaints allege, there’s a chance that the trappings of the Green Lantern overshadow the grounded approach that the show is meant to be taking. Having multiple members of the Sinestro Corps appear, most likely as antagonists that get into an altercation with the heroes, would be to Lanterns what seeing a serum-free Anthony Mackie go toe to toe with a Hulk was for Captain America: Brave New World: the final nail in the coffin on the show’s credibility as a grounded adventure. Like with Cap, the idea of a grounded project with heroes that can fly and utilize futuristic technology bordering on magic was already a stretch, and bringing in alien monsters will be the breaking point.
While failing at the show’s promised tone would be a mark down for Gunn’s new DCU, it wouldn’t preclude the show from being good, per se. There’s a lot of potential in Lanterns for the wider DCU’s worldbuilding that will be wasted thanks to the show’s professed tone and approach, but some sort of balance between the two could serve the franchise best in the long run. Fans will have to wait and see if Jagannathan’s slip up was a revelation that one of the strongest Lantern Corps is debuting or just a vocal flub, but neither outcome is bad news for fans.
Lanterns is currently set to premiere on HBO and for streaming on Max in early 2026.
Lanterns (DCU)
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John Stewart
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Source: mpmorales/X