#Finn Wittrock Is Guy Gardner in HBO Max’s Green Lantern TV Show

HBO Max has found its Green Lantern in Finn Wittrock (American Horror Story). A decade after the infamous Ryan Reynolds movie flopped completely with viewers, progress is moving along swimmingly on a Green Lantern TV series at HBO Max. Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Seth Grahame-Smith will reportedly serve as executive producers with Grahame-Smith also serving as showrunner, but no casting information had yet been revealed.

That all changed on Thursday when it was reported that Finn Wittrock has picked up the role as the titular ring-wielding superhero. Per Variety, Wittrock will star in the series as Guy Gardner, a version of Green Lantern described as a “hulking mass of masculinity” and an “embodiment of 1980s hyper-patriotism.” He is also said to be “somehow likable,” and the creative team apparently feels Wittrock can nail this type of character
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Green Lantern has been in the works at Warner Bros. since 2019 and was officially ordered to series at HBO Max last year. Its story is said to span “decades and galaxies, beginning on Earth in 1941 with the very first Green Lantern, secretly gay FBI agent Alan Scott, and 1984, with cocky alpha male Gardner and half-alien Bree Jarta. They’ll be joined by a multitude of other Lanterns – from comic book favorites to never-before-seen heroes.”

DC fans will know that there have been various versions of Green Lantern, with the Guy Gardner version created by John Broome and Gil Kane. In the panned 2011 movie, Ryan Reynolds played the Hal Jordan Green Lantern. Other characters in the comics to take on the mantle include John Stewart, Kyle Rayner, Simon Baz, and Jessica Cruz. Because multiple Lanterns are teased for the HBO Max series, any one of these other versions could also appear.

Green Lantern came pretty close to making it into Zack Snyder’s Justice League, but his arrival just wasn’t meant to be. Originally, Snyder had actor Wayne T. Carr on board to play the John Stewart version, but Warner Bros. reportedly had the role axed in favor of Martian Manhunter. This means Green Lantern still has yet to be seen in the DCEU. In part, this could be because of the shortcomings of the 2011 adaptation – a movie that star Ryan Reynolds hadn’t even bothered to watch until recently, and even then, he had to get drunk for the occasion.

Wittrock might be best known for appearing in multiple seasons of American Horror Story, earning an Emmy nomination for his role as Dandy Mott in Freak Show. He’d later earn another Emmy nomination after teaming back up with Ryan Murphy for The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story as murder victim Jeffrey Trail. More recently, he played serial killer Edmund Tolleson in the Netflix series Ratched.

HBO Max’s Green Lantern series will consist of ten episodes. Geoff Johns, Sarah Schechter, David Madden, and David Katzenberg are exec producing alongside Berlanti, Guggenheim, and Grahame-Smith. Elizabeth Hunter and Sara Saedi are co-executive producing. Berlanti Productions will produce in association with Warner Bros. Television. This news comes to us from Variety.

Topics: Green Lantern, HBO Max, Streaming