The best thing that HBO Max’s upcoming Green Lantern series can do to avoid any and all comparisons to Ryan Reynolds’ box office disaster from almost a decade ago is to make itself as markedly different as possible. When casual audiences hear the name, they instantly think of the movie that Reynolds hasn’t stopped making fun of ever since, but Arrowverse co-creators Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim will be looking to change all of that.
Of course, Berlanti was one of the producers on Martin Campbell’s infamous dud and took a co-writing credit alongside Guggenheim and two others, so at least the duo are in a better position than most to try and atone for the past mistakes seeing as they played a key part in making them. And while we don’t know too much about the project just yet, recent rumors have indicated that a brand new character will debut in Green Lantern and act as both the lead and audience surrogate, with Bree Jarta set to patrol the cosmos alongside Guy Gardner in 1984.
Not only that, but insider Daniel Richtman is now claiming that the series will focus on three different time periods, which will presumably dovetail together into one overarching story throughout the course of the first season. As well as the present day timeline and the previously mentioned 1984, Green Lantern will also be partially set during the 1940s, which is hardly a coincidence given that Alan Scott made his comic book debut in the July 1940 issue of All-American Comics.
A superhero buddy cop show with heavy sci-fi elements and a potential TV-MA rating sounds like a phenomenal concept if Berlanti and Guggenheim can pull it off, and it could establish Green Lantern as appointment viewing whenever the series eventually premieres on HBO Max.