The ongoing saga of people trying to create a Green Lantern TV series is a long and ragged one, in which shows have risen from the mists, shone gently for a moment, and then faded away, never to make it to series (or even pilots). But the current contender for the ring, DC Studios’ Lanterns—the one from True Detective producer Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King—has taken a major step forward: It has found its Hal Jordan.
And they went and cast Coach Taylor. Though around these parts Kyle Chandler is beloved for Early Edition and that time he got blown up on Grey’s Anatomy, he is best known for spending years playing a high school football coach on Friday Night Lights. More recently, he starred in Netflix’s series Bloodline and popped up in everything from Godzilla vs. Kong to Mayor of Kingston to Super Pumped (pictured above).
Lanterns has been described as a more gritty sort of superhero series, one not entirely unlike True Detective (so it makes sense that they hired a True Detective vet as showrunner). According to The Hollywood Reporter, it “focuses on Jordan reluctantly mentoring a younger Lantern, John Stewart, who in DC publishing history was one of the company’s first Black superheroes. The story sees the two characters investigating an Earth-bound murder with larger implications.”
Hal Jordan is a former test pilot who was chosen by a dying alien to join the Green Lantern Corps. As is typical for a DC character with a long existence, he has teamed up with or faced off against a long list of other characters. He also was one of the first members of the Justice League, and was played by Ryan Reynolds in that Green Lantern movie that is generally best left unwatched.
When DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran announced their first lineup of projects, Lanterns was on that list, and Safran said it “plays a really big role in leading into the main story we are telling across film and TV.” With Chandler’s casting, we’re one step closer to finding out exactly what that means.
Lanterns will, someday, arrive on Max.
