Turns out Nebraska is the new outer space. Or at least, it will be when Lanterns arrives on Max and HBO in 2026. The Green Lantern series—starring Aaron Pierre as John Stewart and Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan—isn’t skimping on the genre weirdness, even if it’s technically grounded on Earth.
Director James Hawes, best known for Slow Horses and Black Mirror, teased the tone of the upcoming series in a new interview with Collider. While the show’s Earth-based setting sparked some early eye-rolls from fans still scarred by the 2011 Green Lantern movie, Hawes is out here promising this won’t be a gritty cop drama with mood lighting and a green filter slapped on top. There will be “sci-fi magic,” and not just the CW kind.
“It’s done in a world where you accept that these things just are,” Hawes said. That doesn’t mean Lanterns is skipping over realism; it means the show is embracing its cosmic absurdity without apology. Hawes, who admits he came into the superhero genre as a bit of an outsider, said he was “bewitched” by the project. “You always find a scene or two that you think, ‘I can’t wait to be beside the camera and the cast, directing this scene.'”
Hawes also pointed to the show’s humor, which he described as “very particular” and comparable to his previous work. If you’ve seen Slow Horses, you know exactly what kind of droll chaos that implies. The cast, too, got high praise. Pierre and Chandler, he said, bring both “charm” and “authenticity” to their roles. They don’t feel like actors playing superheroes; they feel like people who just happen to have rings that shoot light constructs out of thin air. “They’re not on the outside—they’re deep in those skins.”
So yes, it’s set in Nebraska. But if Hawes delivers on what he’s teasing, Lanterns might just be the first grounded superhero mystery that also knows when to fly.
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