Is Lanterns cancelled? The showrunner responds as DC’s shake-up sparks panic

It’s all a bit chaotic in the DCU right now, isn’t it? After James Gunn and Peter Safran stepped down from running DC Studios at Warner Bros., fans are getting understandably twitchy about the fate of anything they had a hand in. But the one causing the most on-edge conversations is surely Lanterns — and whether or not we’ll see a Season 2.

Lanterns averaged 19 million viewers per episode globally across its first season.

The Ratings vs. the Silence

Lanterns has been one of DC’s rare critical and fan successes during all this churn. The first season pulled in, on average, a decent 19 million viewers per episode worldwide. Just for comparison: that’s pretty much on par with The Penguin, and it’s actually ahead of the most recent run of True Detective (which has already locked in another season). Not bad at all — even if it doesn’t quite touch the mad figures for Euphoria, House of the Dragon, The White Lotus, or IT: Welcome to Derry.

Thing is, despite those healthy numbers, there’s been radio silence from the studio. No announcement. No tease. Not even a classic punted ‘we’re excited about the future’ statement since the season finale, and that’s got everyone wondering what’s going on. The longer it goes, the weirder it seems, especially for a show that’s supposedly a “hit”.

Panic, Denials, and Industry Rumours

Now, this all took another turn when Variety dropped their own grenade: a report claiming most of Gunn and Safran’s DC projects lost money for Warner Bros., suggesting that the lack of renewal talk for Lanterns was more than just an oversight. They even spoke to one of those always-anonymous studio sources, who said (with maximum side-eye) that ‘people cannot wait to make another season of a hit show’ — the point being, if it really was a runaway success, we’d have heard about it by now.

Chris Cantwell, the showrunner — best known for Halt and Catch Fire — wasn’t having any of this doom-mongering. He took to Bluesky to tell people to calm down, posting the slightly exasperated:

Nothing’s cancelled. Calm down.

So as far as the creators are concerned, there’s no decision to axe it — but also, crucially, no decision to bring it back either.

So… What Next?

It doesn’t help that Gunn and Safran are out, leaving the studio’s DC plans up in the air. Some things are already locked: Superman: Man of Tomorrow is done filming, and the Jimmy Olsen spin-off, The People v. Gorilla Grodd, has also wrapped. But for anything else tied to their continuity, it’s not looking rosy. If the new bosses want a completely clean slate, the likes of Lanterns — despite respectable ratings — might not be considered successful enough to justify more episodes by Skydance’s standards.

• Lanterns Season 2: no official word, despite strong numbers
• The Variety report claims most of Gunn/Safran’s DC projects lost money
• Showrunner Chris Cantwell publicly denied cancellation rumours
• Other DC projects, like Superman: Man of Tomorrow and The People v. Gorilla Grodd, have finished filming regardless of the shake-up