I haven’t had a chance to give my thoughts of the HBO Max Green Lantern tv series until now because after WarnerMedia announce it last year. I’ve been waiting to hear more details about it. Almost a year later now there is plenty of more details about the Green Lantern series that I still viewed as RUMORED. various websites last fall have reported the series will be an anthology series, and RUMORS that Sinestro will be one of the feature central characters in the first season. In most recent response from HBO Max’s Content Chief Kevin Reilly who told business Insider last week that the Green Lantern series for HBO Max will have a film like budget for the series on their streaming services. The 2011 Green Lantern movie staring Ryan Reynold’s budget was around 200 million plus dollars total. I believe the budget would be something close to 150 million plus. With all the cool rumored news about the Green Lantern series I am skeptical that the Green Lantern HBO Max series will be a success, because Greg Berlanti and his people will be in charge of developing and creating the HBO Max series.
GREEN LANTERN 2011 FILM
For the many who do not know Greg Berlanti, and Marc Guggenheim who are best known as the Producers and Developers for the CW Arrowverse series. They were responsible for developing the Green Lantern movie in 2011. The two of them with three other people develop, wrote and produce the Green Lantern movie starring Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordon. The movie as everyone knows bombed at the boxed offices and was reviewed as one of the worst comic book movies by critics, fans, and movie audiences. Since the bomb of his Green Lantern movie Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and many others who worked on the movie focused on DCTV for the CW. The first of many DC series starting with Arrow series in 2012. The Arrow series did not fully take off positively with comic book fans until the second half of season one and went full positive throttle in season two.
What made Green Lantern movie bomb was the story direction, and the horrible CGI effects with the Green Lantern suits. Most importantly their version of Green Lantern failed at giving movie audiences a new world they have not seen before on the big screen and not respecting the source material. The main issues in my opinion with the Green Lantern movie is that it takes place mostly on earth and not in space. It failed at introducing the space parts of the DC Universe. Instead all of the battles took place on earth which was a giant disaster. Especially in act three with Hal Jordan battling Parallax which look liked a giant diarrhea cloud. Again this movie had 200 million dollar budget and that was the best Greg Berlanti and his people could come up or present on screen, instead of doing a full on space war in space with the Green Lantern Corps battling Parallax.
With Green Lantern series being develop by the same people who created a diarrhea cloud out of 200 million dollar budget movie and wasted money on bad CGI Green Lantern suits and a bad version of OA. There should be lots of concerns that the Green Lantern Series will easily fail than succeed. AT&T and WarnerMedia are putting the money up for this series just like they are putting up the money for JL Snyder Cut and not Warner Brothers. Berlanti was given a 200 million dollar budget for Green Lantern once and look what happen, which is why he went to TV after his Green Lantern movie. His track record for creating CGI has been horrible. Go look at the CGI on Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, and Titians series on the CW and DCU app.
SIMON BAEZ AND JESSICA CRUZ
Many RUMORS from many websites, but not confirm yet are reporting Simon Baez, and Jessica Cruz will be the central focus Green Lanterns for the first season of HBO Max Green Lantern series along with Sinestro’s early days as a member of the Green Lantern Corps, before he became the enemy. I am hoping this is true because I believe John Stewart and Hal Jordan are made for the big screen and should be viewed as special attraction. I think characters like Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner might make special guest appearances on the show. With many DCTV series taking inspiration from Geoff John’s comic book work into a live action series. Simon Baez and Jessica Cruz are both created by Geoff Johns which make sense why they would use those characters for the central tv series on HBO Max. Hopefully we do not see any origin stories but because this going to be by Berlani expect origin stories for Jessica Cruz and Simon Baez. I expect we will see them use the same formula they used for the Green Lantern movie. Write a story that is all over the place until something sticks. That’s how all of the Arrowverse shows have been written for the last few years beside Black Lighting.
I think I would’ve been happier if someone else took a shot with the Green Lantern series instead of Greg Berlanti, because he had his turn and failed at it horribly. I think bring in someone with a different perspective of the Green Lantern mythology such visionaries like Agnieszka Smoczyńska, Jonathan Nolan, David Lindelof, David Goyer, Katheryn Bigelow, J.J Abrams, or even Zack Snyder. Give someone who is an unknown film creator who is passionate fan of the Green Lantern mythology and wants to present something special. I would’ve been ok if WarnerMedia and AT&T had the Wachowski’s produce the Green Lantern series on HBO Max.
GREEN LANTERN CORPS MOVIE
There has not been any update on the Green Lantern Corps movie that was supposedly written by Geoff Johns and his Mad Dogs production. I think the last time anyone heard about the Green Lantern Corps movie was back in 2018 when Geoff Johns announce he is stepping down from his role in DC Entertainment, and focus on writing comic books, tv series and movies. He announce during that time he was developing a script for Green Lantern as the first project with his Mad Dogs Production. With Geoff Johns success for his Stargirl series for the DCU app and for the CW network. Geoff Johns was heavily involved with the story and script for Wonder Woman movie, Shazam! movie, Aquaman movie, and Wonder Woman 84 that I hope we all see if theaters can return. If Wonder Woman 84 becomes a bigger success than the first movie. Hopefully Warner Brothers will go full on Green Lantern Corps movie with Geoff Johns. Many fan websites like JoBlo, who claim to have “inside information” reported the Green Lantern Corps movie will be a buddy cop movie like the Lethal Weapon movie franchise. That was reported back in 2018, which was the last time any news about Geoff John’s Green Lantern Corps movies start John Stewart and Hal Jordan.
MY FINAL OPINION
Even though I feel heavily negative about the Green Lantern Series because of who is producing the series. Maybe there is a chance that Greg Berlanti learned from his past mistakes from his Green Lantern movie in 2011. This is like Akiva Goldsman who wrote Batman and Robin movie back in 97 and gets a second chance to write Dick Grayson again but this time a darker take on Dick Grayson which they allowed him to do. He’s one of the lead producers and writer on Titans on the DCU app, and so far the series is good but has it’s bad moments. I kind of expect something similar with Akiva Goldsman to happen with Greg Berlanti’s Green Lantern HBO Max series. I guess we all need and wait an see Berlanti’s Green Lantern series and judge it when it is released on HBO Max. I am sure there will be some problems with the series just like everything Berlanti has produce on tv.
My Comic Book Opinion 