HBO’s LANTERNS Premiere Bumped to Summer 2026

The announcement comes directly from HBO and HBO Max CEO Casey Bloys during a slate presentation in New York City Thursday. Late summer almost assuredly means around August, which shifts the DCU release order. Instead of using Lanterns as the lead-in to Supergirl‘s theatrical debut in June 26 of next year, Lanterns will be the center of a very packed DCU few months, with horror film Clayface still on the docket for September 11.

In fairness, we haven’t seen all that much from Lanterns aside from the above image of stars Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler. DC Studios head James Gunn shared that picture as production commenced in spring 2025. We have a small list of actors, one of whom is Ulrich Thomson as Sinestro. We also know Nathan Fillion will reprise his Guy Gardner role (a sweary version) in the show. So it’s not as though we’ve even seen a clip or a teaser. Who knows the reason for the move, whether it’s show-specific or if it’s part of HBO’s grand schema.

In any case, we now have no DCU projects for over six months. Meanwhile, Marvel will launch Wonder Man in January and Daredevil: Born Again season two in March before its own big movie, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, in May. So Marvel owns spring, DC has the summer.

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.