Green Lantern John Stewart is set to make his DCU debut in HBO's Lanterns, and the ring-slinging hero will be making the jump to the big screen a lot sooner than expected.
First reported by Jeff Sneider and now confirmed by THR, Aaron Pierre will reprise his Lanterns role in James Gunn's Man of Tomorrow. We're not sure if Stewart will be integral to the sequel's story, but if Pierre was only set to make a cameo, it's unlikely that the trades would have reported on his casting.
THR has also confirmed that Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane), Skyler Gisondo (Jimmy Olsen), Sara Sampaio (Eve Teschmacher), Isabela Merced (Hawkgirl), and The Engineer (Maria Gabriella de Faria) will return.
Gunn's Superman follow-up is scheduled to begin shooting this April in locations around London and Atlanta. The plot will focus on the Man of Steel (David Corenswet) and Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) putting their differences aside and joining forces to defend the planet against Brainiac (Lars Eidinger).
"At its core, it’s about Clark and Lex," Gunn said in a recent interview. "I relate to both of them. I relate to Lex’s ambition and obsession — minus the murder. And I relate to Superman’s belief in people, his Midwestern values. They’re two sides of me."
You can see Pierre in action as John Stewart in the recent Lanterns teaser below.
Several different scoopers sent speculation into overdrive recently by sharing Man of Tomorrow casting details for a character that sounded a lot like Wonder Woman, and it was beginning to look like Gunn really was in the process of searching for an actress to play a new take on the iconic Amazonian warrior for his Superman follow-up.
However, the filmmaker would later debunk the theory, and NPN has previously reported that the character is actually Maxima, who will serve as the movie's secondary antagonist.
Frank Grillo's Rick Flag Sr. (we've heard that other characters from Peacemaker season 2 will also feature) is also set to return. The HBO Max series concluded with Chris Smith and the rest of the 11th Street Kids, along with Judomaster and A.R.G.U.S. Agents Sasha Bordeaux and Langston Fleury, founding Checkmate, and a vengeance-fuelled Flag Sr. establishing his villainous turn by kidnapping Chris and stranding him in Salvation, the Earth-like dimension Flag intends to use as a prison for the planet's metahumans.
We assume that Flag is going to continue down this path, so don't be surprised if he winds up as an adversary of the Man of Steel in MOT - at least until Brainiac puts everyone on Earth on notice.
Man of Tomorrow will hit theaters on July 9, 2027.