The new DC Universe just received its clearest indication yet that audiences are willing to show up for James Gunn and Peter Safran’s rebooted franchise.
According to Variety, the premiere of Lanterns attracted 9.3 million viewers globally during its first three days on HBO and HBO Max, including 6.6 million viewers in the United States. That makes Lanterns the biggest premiere for a DC Studios series on HBO Max to date and one of the five biggest premieres in the platform’s history.
Lanterns is not simply another superhero series arriving on a crowded streaming service. It is one of the foundational projects of the new DC Universe – and DC Studios appears to have deliberately positioned it as something different from the conventional superhero formula.
The series stars Aaron Pierre as John Stewart and Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan, with Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Jason Ritter and Ulrich Thomsen also appearing. Rather than immediately leaning into the most fantastical aspects of Green Lantern mythology, the series follows Stewart and Jordan as intergalactic law enforcement officers investigating a murder in the American heartland.
That premise appears to have worked.
For comparison, The Penguin eventually reached 10.4 million viewers across platforms – but that figure came after 11 days of availability. Lanterns reached 9.3 million in just three days. And of course, it didn’t have the cache of a critically acclaimed Batman movie to proceed it.
It also significantly outperformed another recent HBO Max success, It: Welcome to Derry, which attracted 5.7 million viewers during its first three days. A show that only just recently got picked up for a second season.
In other words, Lanterns isn’t simply performing well for a DC series. It is performing like a major HBO franchise.
James Gunn and Peter Safran have repeatedly emphasized that the new DC Universe would not require every project to look or feel the same. Lanterns may be the strongest early demonstration of that philosophy.
Instead of making another brightly colored superhero adventure, the series is reportedly structured as a murder mystery and character drama with science-fiction elements. Hal Jordan is an established legend within the Green Lantern Corps, while John Stewart is a new recruit attempting to find his place within that world.
The combination gives the series two different entry points. Chandler’s Hal represents experience, history and the mythology of the Green Lantern Corps. Pierre’s John represents the audience’s introduction to that mythology. Putting the two together inside a grounded investigation gives the series the opportunity to introduce one of DC’s strangest and most expansive mythologies without overwhelming viewers on day one.
And the early audience numbers suggest that strategy may have paid off.
The success of Lanterns also changes how Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner should be viewed within the emerging DCU.
As previously reported, Fillion’s Guy Gardner has already appeared in Superman and is expected to cross into the animated Mister Miracle series. His presence across multiple projects increasingly suggests that DC Studios may be establishing him as one of the franchise’s connective characters.
Lanterns gives that strategy additional weight.
Guy Gardner is not simply another Green Lantern anymore. He is becoming one of the recognizable faces of the Corps across multiple corners of the DCU.
That could prove especially useful as the franchise begins expanding into its cosmic mythology.
Mister Miracle, the New Gods, Darkseid and the larger Fourth World mythology represent an enormous expansion of the universe. Green Lantern mythology can provide a bridge between those cosmic stories and the more grounded Earth-based stories audiences are already watching.
If Lanterns continues to perform at this level, DC Studios has another major advantage: audiences are now invested in the mythology that allows those connections to feel organic.
A 9.3 million-viewer opening puts Lanterns in rare territory for HBO Max. More importantly, it demonstrates that audiences will turn out for a DC project that isn’t built around Superman, Batman or a traditional superhero spectacle.
That may ultimately be the most important victory. The new DCU doesn’t need every project to be an event on the scale of Superman. It needs audiences to believe that these different stories belong to the same universe – and that each one is worth watching.
With Lanterns, DC Studios may have just found its first major proof that the strategy can work. And if the series maintains its momentum, the biggest beneficiary may not be Lanterns itself.
It could be the entire DCU.