Lanterns Season 2 is in early development while it awaits an official green light at HBO, co-creator Damon Lindelof has confirmed.
One of the creatives behind DC’s popular Green Lantern show offered the second season update during a conversation with Collider. Although it may not be the firm commitment to more episodes that many were hoping to see after Lanterns aired its first season finale, it’s at least a sign that some of the minds at DC Studios are already working to will them into existence behind the scenes.
With Season 1 officially over and (most) questions answered, the main thing most fans want to know is: Where is Lanterns Season 2? Lindelof said he does “not know anything” about how the DCU’s John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) and Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) may evolve in the future, but he did confirm that there are already “writers who are working on ideating on Season 2.”
Warning! Lanterns Season 1 finale spoilers follow.
Of course, those who finished the HBO show’s first season know that Chandler’s Hal Jordan is well and truly dead by the time its final episode’s credits roll. The topic of the DC superhero icon’s death – and all of the controversy surrounding it – is something Lindelof also addressed as fans wait for Season 2 confirmation.
“I can only tell you that everybody in the Season 1 room,” he said, “inclusive of the writers who are working on ideating on Season 2, felt like even though we knew that it was going to be emotionally devastating and/or disappointing and maybe even frustrating, that the worst possible schmuck-baity thing that we could do is show you a pilot where Hal Jordan was definitively dead, and then try to walk it back and say, ‘Oh, he was a clone’ or ‘He’s only mostly dead’ in the Princess Bride vernacular.”
At least as far as the eight episodes we’ve received and the greater DCU is concerned, Hal Jordan’s final moments were spent arguing with Kelly Macdonald’s Sheriff Kerry Kane on the bleachers of a high school football field in Rushville, Nebraska. Ulrich Thomsen’s Sinestro did tease that he knows a way to bring Chandler’s fan-favorite character back from the grave, but given it seems he’s just starting his villainous ways, it’s hard to take his offer to John Stewart at face value.
Lindelof really wants fans to know that he doesn’t know what the future may hold. That said, he’s also well aware that DC comics have been known to play with Green Lantern lore in the past.
“I do not know anything about the creative,” he continued, “and I wouldn’t want to hamstring those writers in any way for what future storytelling mechanisms they could indulge in. Knowing what the comics have done with Parallax — and Hal, I think, has died at least three or four times over the course of the canon, and celebrating everything that Kyle did in his performance to get the audience to fall in love with Hal.”
Lanterns has been surrounded by theories for weeks, and considering we know the DCU Green Lantern Corps will return in the future, they’ll surely only continue in the months and years ahead. Pierre, for example, is already confirmed to reprise his role as Earth’s new Green Lantern in Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow when it premieres next year. Just how prominent his role will be, or how his potential part in the yet-to-be-greenlit Season 2 fits in, remains to be seen.
Chandler’s Hal Jordan may be gone, but fans still love what they’ve seen so far. Some have even gone as far as to say the choice to have him play the character is a casting decision that rivals Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man.
While we wait to see if Lanterns Season 2 is officially on the way, you can check out IGN’s 8/10 review of the finale. You can also read about how DC Studios’ James Gunn and Peter Safran fit into a newly reorganized Warner Bros. and Paramount.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
