HBO Max's Lanterns has raised eyebrows with a new John Stewart-centered poster, released a week after the show's finale. The artwork came as a surprise, arriving amid growing chatter about a potential Season 2, with fans demanding a follow-up. Lanterns was an instant hit when it premiered on August 16, introducing Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre's John Stewart. The show grounded the iconic Green Lanterns in the rural community of Rushville, Nebraska, where a nail-biting mystery slowly brewed.
Warner Bros. TV surprised fans by sharing the new John Stewart poster just as they were reeling from the lack of a Lanterns episode for the first time in eight weekends. The artwork shows Stewart sitting on a bench with his head down, beneath a banner reading "FIRST SUNDAY WITHOUT A NEW EPISODE." The account captioned the post, "It's rough out here Watch all of #Lanterns season 1 now on @HBOMax!"
Warner Bros.' heavy promotion of the series has only sparked more clamor for new episodes, and the chances of Season 2 getting an official greenlight look better by the day. Co-creator Damon Lindelof recently revealed that writers are already "ideating" on a second season, though HBO has yet to officially order one, a point showrunner Chris Mundy has stressed himself.
At this point, Warner Bros. does not have much of an excuse not to give Lanterns a follow-up. The show has pulled in bigger numbers than many series that have aired on HBO Max over the past two years. When it premiered, it drew 6.6 million US viewers in its first three days alone. For comparison, the Stephen King prequel It: Welcome to Derry amassed 5.7 million US viewers in the same window last year, while The Penguin, one of DC's most revered shows, managed 5.3 million over four days in 2024.
Overall, Lanterns reached 9.3 million viewers worldwide in its first three days, the biggest premiere ever for a DC Studios show on the platform. It: Welcome to Derry officially received its Season 2 greenlight in August, with The Brave and the Bold director Andy Muschietti returning. If that show earned a second season, Lanterns, with its superior viewership, should be a lock for the same.
The case gets even stronger when stacked against HBO Max's other global hits. Dune: Prophecy, the popular sci-fi prequel, earned its Season 2 renewal in December 2024 with its premiere episode standing at roughly 15 million viewers worldwide. The Lanterns premiere is now approaching 30 million, nearly double that mark. Dune: Prophecy also started far smaller, with just 1.2 million US cross-platform viewers on premiere night. HBO saw enough in that trajectory to commit to more episodes. It is hard to see the network not doing the same for Lanterns.
HBO has shown that renewal decisions are heavily driven by viewership, and Lovecraft Country remains a cautionary tale. One of the platform's most acclaimed shows, its October 2020 finale drew only 1.5 million viewers, a season high at the time, and it was canceled the following year despite the critical love and an Emmy win for Courtney B. Vance. Lanterns far outpaces those numbers. Its October 4 finale pulled in 10.5 million global viewers in three days, a series best, with the season averaging 19.3 million and counting. On the viewership front, the Green Lantern drama is more than safe.
How Soon Could Lanterns Season 2 Arrive, and Where Will the Story Go?
Warner Bros. Discovery was recently acquired by David Ellison's Skydance, and the merger has triggered plenty of reshuffling at the executive level. HBO content chief Casey Bloys, for example, now oversees both HBO and Paramount+ as co-chair of Skydance's direct-to-consumer operation. The new bosses are still putting their house in order, so big decisions like this could take some time. Renewals also tend to move slowly. It: Welcome to Derry wrapped in December of last year but only received its official renewal eight months later. The fact that Lanterns writers are already kicking ideas around is a good sign, showing DC Studios has confidence in a greenlight.
If Lanterns does get a second season order, it will be interesting to see the direction it takes. The show will likely remain grounded rather than become the CGI-heavy space war some corners of the DC fanbase want. Season 1 was allocated a reported budget of around $160 million, and even with that, the Green Lantern constructs on display across the eight-episode run were limited. It is hard to imagine Season 2 getting a bigger allocation. The follow-up will likely track another grounded mystery with John Stewart, and perhaps Guy Gardner, taking the spotlight.
One intriguing possibility is whether the writers undo Hal's death using the Parallax arc from the comics, especially after the Season 1 finale teased Sinestro claiming he knew a way to bring Hal Jordan back. In the comics, Parallax is the living embodiment of fear, the entity housed in the Central Power Battery on Oa and the source of the Yellow Lanterns' light. It famously possessed Hal as he descended into madness after his hometown, Coast City, was destroyed.
Season 2 would need a creative approach to that arc, though, so as not to cheapen Hal's death. James Gunn has also said in the past that characters who die in the DCU stay dead, so this direction might not even be an option. Regardless of where the story goes, fans will be eagerly awaiting the follow-up season.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
