In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape their sight…but first, a Green Lantern has to reach there first. That’s the issue John Stewart faces in Lanterns, the upcoming HBO and DC Studios series featuring two Green Lanterns, who says in the opening moments of the trailer, “With all due respect, we’ve been training for what, two months, and I haven’t worn the ring yet”.
Hal Jordan, his elder and more experienced partner, then drives a car off a cliff, forcing John to act quickly and use his Green Lantern powers to save himself. “I could have died,” he tells Hal. The response: “You wanted me to train you, I’m trainin’ you.” Ah, the classic buddy-cop dynamic.
The tension puts them at odds, but the pair soon find themselves working together to solve a small-town murder, only to uncover a dark mystery and a reckoning that could destroy them all. While there isn’t much superhero action going on, the clip teases a quick look at the Green Lantern costume, a ring, the power battery, and a neat reference to Ch’p, an extraterrestrial member of the Green Lantern Corps that resembles a squirrel.
Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights) and Aaron Pierre (Krypton) lead the cast as Hal and John, respectively, while James Bond star Ulrich Thomsen is set to play big bad Sinestro. Reprising his role in James Gunn’s Superman is Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner, joining Kelly Macdonald as Kerry, the local sheriff; Garret Dillahunt as William Macon, a modern-day cowboy; Poorna Jagannathan as Zoe, a composed and cunning woman; Nicole Ari Parker as Bernadette Stewart, John’s mother; and Jason Ritter as Billy Macon, Kerry’s husband.
Lanterns is created by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King, with HBO producing in association with Warner Bros. Television and DC Studios. Co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran serve as executive producers alongside James Hawes, Ron Schmidt, Mundy, Lindelof, and King. Hawes also directs the first two episodes, while Steven Williams, Geeta Vasant Patel, and Alik Sakharov will helm subsequent instalments.
The eight-episode series premieres sometime in August.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
Joey Leong
