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Lanterns: James Gunn Credits Tom King for "True Detective"-Like Series

During the official Lanterns podcast, James Gunn credits Tom King for bringing up the idea of a "True Detective"-like take on Green Lantern.

Heading into Sunday night's series premiere of Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and Tom King's Aaron Pierre (John Stewart) and Kyle Chandler (Hal Jordan)-starring Lanterns, we offered a bit of a recap of the long and winding road that led to the big night. Specifically, how close we came to getting a very different series take on the Green Lantern Corps. One of the more interesting sticking points seems to be the question marks surrounding who first proposed crossing a Green Lantern series with HBO's True Detective. We know that DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran dropped that comparison when the series was first announced as part of DC Studios' first wave of films and shows. But Marc Guggenheim, who was part of the team developing an earlier take on a Green Lantern series, shared that "True Detective" was name-dropped to him during their efforts to get their series off the ground. Now, Gunn has checked in, not only crediting King for coming up with the idea for Lanterns but also being the one who "brought up this idea of creating a 'True Detective'-like version of 'Lanterns.'"

"Tom King came up with the idea for Lanterns. So when Peter [Safran, co-DC Studios CEO] and I were first hired at DC, we did sort of a writers' round table where I came in with a bunch of ideas for, you know, shows and movies that I wanted to do, things like, you know, 'Superman' and 'Man of Tomorrow,' but also shows like the Jimmy Olsen, you know, Grodd show and things like that, and 'Creature Commandos,' and what was going to happen in 'Peacemaker,' and sort of a rough story," Gunn shared during the first edition of Lanterns: The Official Podcast.

Gunn continued, "And that was when Tom King brought up this idea of creating a 'True Detective'-like version of 'Lanterns,' where they have these outer space powers, but they're, you know, it's a grounded, realistic show, and about the clash between John and Hal and what that would be like. And I just thought it was just such an interesting take. I think one of the strengths of Tom King is he's able to come at these iconic characters from a slightly different perspective. And I think that was our guiding light for the entire show from the beginning."

The series spotlights new recruit John Stewart (Pierre) and legendary Lantern Hal Jordan (Chandler), two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, Earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland. Along with Pierre and Chandler, the DC Studios series stars Garret Dillahunt (Fear The Walking Dead), Kelly Macdonald (Boardwalk Empire, In the Line of Duty), Poorna Jagannathan (Never Have I Ever, Deli Boys), Ulrich Thomsen (Counterpart, The Blacklist), Nicole Ari Parker (And Just Like That), Jason Ritter (Matlock), J. Alphonse Nicholson (P-Valley), Sherman Augustus (Stranger Things), Jasmine Cephas Jones (Blindspotting), Chris Coy (Bass Reeves), Paul Ben-Victor (Nobody Wants This), Cary Christopher (Days of Our Lives), and Laura Linney (Ozark). In addition, Nathan Fillion will be reprising his Superman role as Green Lantern Guy Gardner for the series. Helming the series are directors James Hawes, Stephen Williams, Geeta Vasant Patel, and Alik Sakharov. Based on the DC Comics Green Lantern, the series is executive produced by Mundy, Lindelof, Gunn, Safran, King, Hawes, and Ron Schmidt.

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