If you watched Lanterns and wondered where the reported $160 million budget went, CoSA VFX has an answer. A newly released visual effects reel for HBO’s DCU series reveals just how much of the show was digitally altered – including effects many viewers probably never noticed.
Lanterns was shot in California, but the story is largely set in rural Nebraska. That meant extensive background replacement, environment work, and digital cleanup throughout the season to transform one location into another.
And the VFX work went well beyond landscapes.
Even John Stewart’s beard was digitally enhanced.
That kind of invisible work helps explain why the series could carry such a large budget despite being relatively light on the kind of flashy Green Lantern constructs, alien worlds, and cosmic battles fans might normally associate with the property.
Instead, much of the money appears to have gone into making the show’s grounded world feel seamless. Watch below:
The reel underscores a side of visual effects that often gets overlooked: the best work is sometimes the work audiences never realize they are seeing.
Lanterns stars Aaron Pierre as John Stewart and Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan, two intergalactic cops drawn into a murder investigation in the American heartland. The ensemble also includes Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Nicole Ari Parker, Jason Ritter, J. Alphonse Nicholson and Jasmine Cephas Jones.
HBO has not yet renewed the series for a second season.
DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran recently said the decision will come down to whether the creative team can find a worthy follow-up. “This was one great season of television based on a property that had been somewhat irradiated since 2011,” Safran said. “The thing that’s most gratifying about this show and this season on HBO is that it’s brought Green Lantern back into the conversation, into the public culture in a really positive fashion.”
He added that a second season would depend on whether the team can come up with a story strong enough to justify returning. For now, the VFX reel offers a different kind of postmortem on Season 1.
Lanterns may have looked grounded.
But apparently, a lot of that ground wasn’t really there.
The Geek is a working screenwriter, director, and screenwriting instructor.
