Green Lanterns HBO series finds its John Stewart: Aaron Pierre joins Kyle Chandler

HBO’s dynamic duo for the upcoming Lanterns drama is complete!

Aaron Pierre joins the DC superhero series as John Stewart opposite Friday Night Lights veteran Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan, Entertainment Weekly has learned.

It’s a big year for Pierre, who starred as an ex-Marine in Netflix’s action film Rebel Ridge and he’ll next be seen (or, more accurately, heard) as the voice of young Mufasa in Disney’s The Lion King prequel film. He also had standout roles in Amazon’s Underground Railroad series, the indie film Foe, the M. Night Shyamalan movie Old, and in Nat Geo’s Genius: MLK/X as Malcolm X. He recently joined the cast of Apple’s The Morning Show.

According to reports, Pierre was in the running for the John Stewart role with Stephen James, who stars in one of this year’s buzzed-about potential awards contenders The Piano Lesson and previously starred in If Beale Street Could Talk, the Jesse Owens story Race, Selma, and the Chadwick Boseman-led 21 Bridges.

The eight-episode Lanterns, inspired by the Green Lanterns of DC comics, sees John as the latest recruit to the Lantern Corps., an intergalactic policing organization dedicated to protecting the cosmos. The chief weapon of a Lantern is the power ring, which is fueled by willpower and grants its owner the ability to conjure virtually anything they can think of, including shields, offensive power blasts, armor, weapons, and constructs.

John teams up with Hal, considered a legend among the Corps., as they police Precinct Earth. They head to the American heartland to investigate a murder and find themselves in the midst of a dark, Earth-based mystery that has larger implications for the over-arching DCU plans that will stretch across movies and shows.

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“We have a few other Lanterns peppered in there, but this is really a terrestrial-based TV show that is almost like True Detective with a couple of Green Lanterns who are space cops watching over precinct Earth,” James Gunn, the co-head of DC Studios and director of Superman, said in an earlier video presentation announcing Lanterns.

Speaking of that prestige HBO crime drama, Chris Mundy of True Detective: Night Country serves as showrunner on Lanterns. Mundy also writes the show alongside fellow executive producers Damon Lindelof of HBO’s Watchmen and prolific DC comic creator Tom King.

The character of John originated in the comics as a former architect and U.S. Marine Corps vet. He’s also notable for being one of DC’s most prominent Black superheroes, and he only gained more popularity over the years by featuring in the animated Justice League and Justice League: Unlimited cartoons.

Hal, meanwhile, began his journey in the comics as a test pilot who became the first human member of the Green Lantern Corps. when he stumbled upon the remains of a dying Lantern amid a crashed alien spaceship. Josh Brolin was originally offered the Hal role in Lanterns, but the actor turned it down, EW previously reported.

Lanterns is part of a big revamp to Warner Bros. DCU plans spearheaded by Gunn and his DC Studios counterpart Peter Safran. Gods and Monsters, the name for the first phase of interconnected titles between the big and small screens, begins with this December’s animated series Creature Commandos. It then continues with next year’s event movie Superman, which will introduce a different Green Lantern apart from John and Hal, Nathan Fillion‘s Guy Gardner.

In a joint statement released when Lanterns was first greenlit to series, Gunn and Safran said, “John Stewart and Hal Jordan are two of DC’s most compelling characters, and Lanterns brings them to life in an original detective story that is a foundational part of the unified DCU we’re launching next summer with Superman.”