So, Is Lanterns Canceled Or What?

4 min readYou know what happens when you blow up a universe? You’re left sifting through the rubble. Since the news that James Gunn and his producing partner Peter Safran have been ousted as co-CEOs and co-chairmen of DC Studios, there are many questions about the future of their DC Universe. Chief among them is Lanterns. So, is Lanterns canceled? That’s what everyone wants to know.The confusion started when Variety published its report about the exit of Gunn and Safran on November 10. The brunt of the story details how Gunn and Safran’s leadership of the studio was a modest, but not big enough, success for Warner Bros. (and now Skydance) brass. “Efforts to right the ship were mixed at best—with tentpoles and television shows that didn’t always generate enough excitement to justify their price tags,” wrote Variety. “Sources suggest the thinking was they spent big—and lost too much—on projects that just weren’t resonating with audiences.”In the story, Variety explored the studio’s TV efforts, which we should note have plenty of asterisks. Under Gunn and Safran’s leadership, DC Studios released The Penguin, a spinoff of The Batman that won awards; the caveat is that it was already in development before Gunn and Safran took over. There was also the second season of Peacemaker, a series created by Gunn (as a spinoff of his 2021 movie The Suicide Squad) but whose creation also, weirdly, predates Gunn’s reign over DC. It was also the second season of a television show three years after it premiered.This leads to Lanterns, the first DC show to grow from conception to air under Gunn and Safran. In Variety’s original version of its story, the outlet’s phrasing about the fate of Lanterns made the Internet jump as it suggested the show, which cultivated a dedicated audience over the late summer, was canceled. “An insider at the company suggests the crime drama isn’t quite capturing the zeitgeist, pointing out the show didn’t get renewed for a second season,” Variety wrote.Hours later, Variety changed its story to its current phrasing (the new words in bold): “Yet an insider at the company suggests the crime drama isn’t quite capturing the zeitgeist, pointing out the show has yet to be renewed for a second season.”Variety also added the same source, saying, “People cannot wait to make another season of a hit show.”HBODesigned as a gritty sci-fi series, Lanterns starred Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre as buddy Green Lanterns investigating a murder in Nebraska. The show was a success on HBO, with weekly episodes igniting discussions and speculation among fans.You can see why there’s confusion. Gunn and Safran’s dismissal from DC was sudden, blindsiding even the men themselves (according to trades like The Hollywood Reporter) at a time when DC Studios seemed to be in a steady rhythm. Sure, this year’s Supergirl was a fumble, but last year’s Superman had gotten the refreshed DCU off on the right foot, and the recent mid-budget horror-thriller Clayface grossed a clean $100 million. Though none of Gunn/Safran-era movies were eye-watering successes, you also can’t measure long-term impact and sustained popularity of a franchise in box office milestones alone. That’s not how art works.It’s especially confusing with Lanterns. Back in October, outlets like Variety reported strong viewership figures for the series on HBO and HBO Max. In Skydance’s own third-quarter earnings call, the studio touted Lanterns as a rousing success, with an average of twenty-two million global viewers and “among HBO Max’s strongest launches” ever for the platform. To now read from insider sources claiming Lanterns wasn’t “quite capturing the zeitgeist” is downright absurd, and frankly an insult to anyone’s intelligence.Is Lanterns canceled? The good news is it isn’t. The bad news is that it isn’t canceled yet. Lanterns was a key part of Gunn’s grand plans for the DCU. Now that he’s been removed—and his future at the company unclear, despite more projects in development under his guidance—the fate of Lanterns is uncertain, as is the whole DCU.A likely scenario is that Skydance will burn through all the remaining DC projects and dump them on HBO Max. Stuff like Gunn’s Superman sequel Man of Tomorrow, the mockumentary comedy The People vs. Gorilla Grodd, and the animated film Dynamic Duo, which is said to be a highly experimental project using puppetry and animation. Lanterns season 2 could be among them, perhaps fast-tracked to HBO Max, where it would get a swift cancellation regardless of its performance (especially now that audiences will know not to get invested), or it simply doesn’t get made at all. But it’s anyone’s guess what will actually happen.Whether audiences will get to see John Stewart be the Green Lantern is now in the hands of new studio leaders like Jeremy Latcham, who will replace Gunn and Safran starting on December 1. We’ll see if Latcham leads with willpower or through fear.