DC Studios’ Lanterns Series Adds Slow Horses and Black Mirror Director

DC’s long-awaited Lanterns series has found its first director. On Friday, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that James Hawes is expected to direct the first two episodes of HBO’s Lanterns, as well as executive produce the series. Based on the mythos of DC’s Green Lanterns, Lanterns will be the first new live-action television series in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DC Universe. Hawes is most recently known for directing multiple episodes of the Apple TV+ hit Slow Horses, as well as Penny Dreadful and Snowpiercer. He has also directed multiple notable episodes of Doctor Who, including “The Empty Child” and “The Christmas Invasion”, and the Black Mirror episodes “Hated in the Nation” and “Smithereens.” 

It was confirmed last month that Lanterns will star Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan / Green Lantern. The report confirms that casting is still underway for the role of John Stewart / Green Lantern, with Rebel Ridge‘s Aaron Pierre and The Piano Lesson‘s Stephan James reportedly undergoing screen tests late this week. 

What Is Lanterns About?

Lanterns follows new recruit John Stewart and Lantern legend Hal Jordan, two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland. The series, which has secured an eight-episode straight-to-series order from HBO, is executive produced and written by Ozark‘s Chris Mundy, Watchmen and Lost‘s Damon Lindelof, and award-winning comic creator Tom King. 

“We are elated to be reuniting with both Chris Mundy and Damon Lindelof as they partner with Tom for this fresh take on DC’s ‘Green Lantern,’” Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO, HBO and Max Content, said in a statement when the series was officially greenlit. “As part of James and Peter’s vision for the DC Universe, this first new live action series will mark an exciting new era.”

What Is on the DC Universe Slate?

The initial DC Studios slate will include 2025’s Superman, 2026’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, and currently-undated movies The Brave and the Bold, Swamp Thing, and The Authority. It will also include the HBO Max television shows Waller, Booster Gold, Lanterns, Paradise Lost, and an animated Creature Commandos series. Most recently, Gunn announced the new animated movie Dynamic Duo, which will center on Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, but it is unclear whether or not the film will be set in the DCU or be a DC Elseworlds production. Reports have also indicated that a live-action Teen Titans movie, a live-acton movie involving Bane and Deathstroke, and an animated Jurassic League movie are in the works at DC Studios, although neither have been publicly confirmed by Gunn and Safran.

“A lot of people think it’s going to be Marvel 2.0, and definitely I learned a lot of stuff at Marvel. I think that we have a lot of differences,” Gunn explained in 2023. “We are telling a big, huge, central story that is like Marvel, except for, I think that we’re a lot more planned out than Marvel from the beginning because we’ve gotten a group of writers together to work that story out completely. But we’re also creating a universe that is like Star Wars, where there’s different times, different places, different things, or Game of Thrones, where characters are a little bit more morally complex.”