Marc Guggenheim Responds to Green Lantern Redevelopment News

10/30/2022 12:24 am EDT

Marc Guggenheim, the Arrow co-creator who was set to write and produce HBO Max's Green Lantern, took to his Legal Dispatch newsletter to respond to recent reports that the series was headed into redevelopment, and that he was not involved with the show at this point. While some of the stars and  head writer/showrunner Seth Grahame-Smith had left as a result of the series' recent difficulties, Guggenheim had already been gone for some time, focusing on a number of upcoming projects including the graphic novel Too Dead To Die: A Simon Cross Thriller, which features art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Michael Golden.

The new series has lost Grahame-Smith, and will focus on John Stewart rather than the alternating timelines of Alan Scott and Guy Gardner. Guggenheim told fans that while he has "complex" feelings about the redevelopment, he is proud of the writing staff that he and his Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow collaborator Greg Berlanti put together.

"As the article...notes, apart from co-writing what would have been the season finale, I haven't had much to do with the series for the past year or so," Guggenheim wrote. "Nevertheless, my feelings about this development (or, I suppose, redevelopment) are... complex. However, my feelings about the writing staff – Elizabeth Hunter, Sara Saedi, Pornsak Pichetshote, Juan Carlos Fernandez, Geoff Johns, Lamont Magee, Kirsten Pierre, and Jabari McDonald – are anything but."

"Showrunner Seth Grahame-Smith and I assembled a group of incredible writers and terrific human beings whose voices were as layered and diverse as the show we originally set out to make," Guggenheim added. "Although this version of Green Lantern won't be breaking out of orbit, I'll always be grateful that these wonderful folks ended up in mine."

Guggenheim was a credited writer on the Green Lantern movie, although his draft has been much better-received by fans than the version that was made, since it leaked online. When he and Berlanti -- who also worked on Green Lantern -- were first tapped to write for Arrow, the pair accepted the assignment on the condition that nobody at Warner Bros. TV would ever acknowledge their involvement, unless the show went forward. Of course, Arrow became a huge hit that spawned a shared DC multiverse spanning The Flash, Supergirl, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, and Batwoman. Guggenheim oversaw the various line-wide crossover events, including the epic Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries which brought together the Arrowverse shows with characters from across DC's decades of live-action lore. 

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