HBO’s Lanterns adds Aaron Pierre to its cast as John Stewart

While HBO has yet to officially lock in a Hal Jordan for its upcoming Lanterns series based on DC’s comics, the network has found its John Stewart.

Today, HBO announced that Rebel Ridge and Old star Aaron Pierre will play Lanterns’ John Stewart, a new recruit to the Green Lantern Corps. who partners up with veteran Lantern Hal Jordan to solve a “dark, earth-based” murder mystery that requires their expertise. As Deadline notes, Kyle Chandler has reportedly been in talks to join the series as Jordan, and Pierre narrowly edged out Homecoming’s Stephan James for the Stewart role.

Lanterns, which doesn’t yet have a solid release date, is one of the more high-profile live-action projects set to kick off Warner Bros. and DC Studio’s new universe of interconnected comic book adaptations consisting of films like James Gunn’s Superman and series like Creature Commandos. It will probably be a while before we know more about what Lanterns showrunner Chris Mundy is cooking up for the boys in green. But as long as it’s been since we got a good John Stewart story on the small screen — Justice League Unlimited finished airing in 2006 — it could be very worth the wait.