Green Lantern HBO Max Series Reportedly Darker Than First Expected

HBO Max’s live-action Green Lantern series may still be some time away from its debut – series writer and showrunner Seth Grahame-Smith recently offered an update noting that the series is a “big undertaking” and that it will take “a while” to become a reality – but a new report suggests that when the much-anticipated series does debut, it may just have a darker tone than initially expected. According to The Illuminerdi, the Green Lantern series will be more akin to the Watchmen event series in terms of tone, something that may not only shift what fans expect from the series but how each of the characters is portrayed.

While the report doesn’t have much in the way of details when it comes to this possibly darker tone outside of comparisons to Watchmen, the idea that a Green Lantern series could have a similar tone isn’t difficult to imagine. Even on the pages of comics, many of the characters in Green Lantern have complex personal lives, and they each deal with issues of bigotry, homophobia, and more depending upon those personal lives. And given what we’ve learned about the characters for the series, the live-action versions of those characters will have those things to deal with as well.

Previously shared character descriptions have revealed that each character has something that they are dealing with. Guy Gardner, who will be portrayed by American Horror Story star Finn Wittrock, is described as having “a deep undercurrent of pain” driving his outward alpha male nature. Alan Scott, played by Jeremy Irvine, is the image of heroic perfection, but hiding his homosexuality and even the newest Lantern Bree Jarta has complex struggles as a half-human, half-alien black woman who not only has to deal with her human side but racism and sexism on Earth – as well as her alpha male partner, Guy. Other characters expected in the series, such as Jessica Cruz, and Simon Baz, also have issues of trauma and anxiety, as well as racism to deal with. When you put all of those things together, a darker and more serious tone similar to Watchmen makes sense.

A darker tone would also fit in with what Wittrock recently told Entertainment Weekly about the series being “not your average superhero story”.

“It is really cool how sprawling a storyline it is,” Wittrock explained. “It’s pretty epic. It spans time and space and has something for everyone. It’s not your average superhero story… He takes on a lot of this show. He’s a pretty big part of it. I think it’s an interesting way in [to the story]. It’s not the conventional way in, but I think people might see a side of him they didn’t know was there.”

A debut date for Green Lantern has not yet been set, but the series is expected to debut on HBO Max.