After weeks of speculation and yesterday’s news of James Gunn and Peter Safran stepping down at DC Studios, the fate of HBO’s Lanterns appears to be sealed – as the series is not expected to be renewed for season 2. For many fans, this will be a shocking development, considering that the series gained viewership over its eight episodes and for the couple of months that it aired, flooded the internet with theories about Hal Jordan’s true fate: was he actually dead? Did he clone himself? And if he actually did die, who killed him? The season 1 (now series) finale did answer those questions and put John Stewart on a clear path for an appearance in Man of Tomorrow, but many viewers liked what they watched and would have shown up for another season.
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Why HBO’s Lanterns Was Cancelled Despite Solid Ratings
According to a line buried in Variety‘s most recent DCU report, an insider suggests Skydance leadership felt as though, in spite of ratings that many networks would find suitable for renewal, the series simply didn’t quite “capture the zeitgeist.“
Here’s the full quote from the report:
“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. ‘People cannot wait to make another season of a hit show,’ the
The report comes mere hours after Lanterns showrunner Chris Mundy placed the odds of the series returning at 50/50 amid the DCU leadership change. However, this sentiment that current DCU projects, even semi-successful ones, aren’t hitting a bar that Skydance leadership believes they should clear is becoming a common refrain. In the flurry of DCU insider reports from the last 24 hours, it’s also been suggested that James Gunn’s Superman – which was the one notable theatrical success of the last two years for the franchise – was still an underperformer from Skydance’s perspective.
It’s clear David Ellison and his team believe DC characters should be doing Marvel Studios numbers – and dominating pop culture conversations. From that perspective, Superman being a box office success and a well-received introduction to the DCU is fine – but there’s a big difference between that and what these storied characters should be able to achieve for the studio, at least from Ellison’s view.
Was David Ellison Wrong to Cancel Lanterns & Claim Superman Should Have Done Better?
While it might be disappointing for fans who enjoyed Lanterns to see the series cut-short, it’s hard to argue with Ellison’s perspective on DC’s place in the entertainment landscape. DC has some of the most famous characters on the planet – even in comparison to Marvel’s roster after 20 years of MCU films – and the last decade of DC film and TV projects has been a bizarre mix of abandoned plans, reboots, Elseworlds stories, and divided fandom.
For that reason, it’s easy to understand why the new owner of the franchise, with his own ideas of the potential he just acquired, might feel as though some of the studio’s recent projects have cheapened rather than elevated fan-favorite characters. In particular, Gunn and Safran’s tenure has been punctuated by choices that, while ballsy and intriguing from a standalone story perspective, undermined the business of creating a competitive shared universe. Even though Lanterns won a lot of fans over during its run, the show did kill Hal Jordan, who was played by a fan-favorite actor, an actor who could have been a major selling point in future shared universe appearances. The choice to favor an emotional and True Detective-like story of Jordan and Stewart’s time together ultimately isn’t a tradeoff someone like Ellison is going to want to make – especially if it means cutting out a key character that could contribute to the success of the multi-billion-dollar franchise he’s envisioning.
One silver lining: it’ll be interesting to see if this means that a resurrection of Hal Jordan is in the cards – as Skydance reshapes the DCU and decides what to keep, what to change, and what to toss.
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