Smallville animated series is “off the table” because of James Gunn’s Superman

Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaumt have been working on a potential animated follow-up to Smallville for a number of years, but series co-creator Alfred Gough said the project is now “off the table” due to James Gunn’s new DC Universe.

“Warners has obviously gone through a lot, and I think the fact that they are in the process of rebooting Superman again, kind of unfortunately, I think, keeps our thing off the table for a bit,” Gough said during Rosenbaum and Welling’s TalkVille podcast (thanks to CBM). “Everything comes around in one form or another, I just read the other day that they are rebooting Buffy for Hulu.“

He continued, “That is the thing, I think the problem with most projects in development in any studio and/or any network is regime change.” Once the DCU has had a little time to establish itself, it’s possible that the Smallville animated sequel series could be revisited. However, Welling has previously admitted that the project is “more of a fan-driven idea” that likely wouldn’t be a “financial windfall” for the studio.

“The honest answer is we have not been able to get Warner Bros. to give us the thumbs-up. We need their permission. We haven’t even gotten a response!” Welling (who played Superman / Clark Kent on Smallville) said last year. “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.“

Michael Rosenbaum (a.k.a. Lex Luthor) shared his own update last year, although he was a little more positive that it could happen. “All I could share is that it’s a great idea. We have Al [Gough] and Miles [Millar], the creators of Smallville backing us up. When it’s the right time, we’d like to go and do this; pitch to Warner Bros. It has to be the right time, and right now is not the right time,” Rosenbaum said. “When the time’s right, I think it’s something that’s a no brainer, unless they have other ideas. We’d like to do it — the whole cast would like to do it. They would voice their own character from the show, and we have a concept of what the show is.“

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