‘Smallville’ Animated Series Is On Hold Because Of David Corenswet And James Gunn’s ‘Superman’
Smallville has a proposed animated series that’s been in development hell for a little while now. It shows no sign of pulling out of that anytime soon, and the reason isn’t hard to figure out. There’s one Earth Prime Superman on the horizon, and DC Studios and director James Gunn are concerned with him alone.
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David Corenswet is the one and only Man of Steel, and all others can stay on their individual Earths, never to be heard from again. (A Crisis-level event will probably purge them from existence before that happens.) So Tom Welling, who is involved with the project alongside Michael Rosenbaum and producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, has to wait his turn (should it ever come).
Gough spoke with Welling and Rosenbaum on their shared Talk Ville podcast and explained, “I think the problem with most projects in development in any studio or at any network is regime change and Warner has obviously gone through a lot. I think the fact that they’re in the process of rebooting Superman again, unfortunately, I think keeps our thing off the table for a bit.”
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He is optimistic, however, that they all will get the chance to reunite and return to the old Talon in Smallville, Kansas. “People love you guys as Clark Kent and Lex Luther, so I do think we’ll have our time. It could come back around. Animation feels like the best way to do it to be honest just given the amount of time and the story. You can still tell the story past the series.”
Gough noted the comeback Buffy is getting, so that may give him hope. Reboots are the rage, but another factor works in the Smallville sequel’s favor: James Gunn’s avowed openness to Elseworlds content. One issue there is that he is more interested in Matt Reeves’s Batman Crime Saga, which had its progress slow to a crawl.
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The other issue is getting Gunn (or someone in the office) to answer the phone. “We haven’t even gotten a response,” Welling said to Screen Rant. “It’s the weirdest thing because it is more of a fan-driven idea. It’s not going to be a blockbuster. It’s not going to be a financial windfall for any of us.”
Less encouraging than Gough, he added, “We all like each other, we all like working together, and if we could do it, it’d be fun. But Warner Bros. – and I’m not hating on them – they just haven’t gotten back to us. It’s not a priority for them, It’s like a not-returning-phone-calls-thing.”
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