Aaron Pierre, who is already playing Green Lantern hero John Stewart in HBO's upcoming DC series Lanterns, is joining the cast of Man of Tomorrow, James Gunn's sequel to 2025's Superman. The casting announcement represents the latest step in James Gunn's strategy to bind television and film within the same fictional universe.
Pierre is making his debut as the character in Lanterns, DC Studios' first live-action series outing that will debut in August. In Lanterns, Pierre stars as John Stewart, a new recruit to the Lantern Corps, opposite Emmy winner Kyle Chandler as Lantern legend Hal Jordan. By the time Stewart arrives on the big screen, he will be much further into his tenure as a Green Lantern Corps member after starting off the Lanterns solo series only two months into his training with Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan.
The move underscores how DC Studios intends to leverage its interconnected storytelling. Pierre as Stewart is part of Gunn's vision of having the DC screen universe, both the DC movies with the DC television shows, integrate seamlessly as one story universe. Stewart is a Green Lantern, one of the space cops patrolling Earth and its sector as part of the Green Lantern Corps, and his appearance makes tonal sense as both Superman and Brainiac are space-faring characters with alien origins.
Gunn wrote the script and is directing Man of Tomorrow, which is due to begin production this summer in Atlanta. David Corenswet is back as Superman and Nicholas Hoult returns as Lex Luthor in a story that sees the two team up to fight the technological alien threat known as Brainiac. The film is set for release on July 9, 2027.
Pierre caught Hollywood's attention with a commanding turn in Rebel Ridge, Netflix's 2024 thriller directed by Jeremy Saulnier. The movie is due to bring back much of the cast, Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane), Skyler Gisondo (Jimmy Olsen) and Sara Sampaio (Eve Teschmacher) among them. Heroes returning include Hawkgirl, played by Isabela Merced, and The Engineer, played by Maria Gabriella de Faria.