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Superman is faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive, but the one thing he simply cannot compete with is… himself.
That’s the word from Brad Schwartz, The CW‘s president of entertainment, who this week shed needed light on what exactly proved to be kryptonite for the netlet’s Superman & Lois series.
After holding court at the Television Critics Association winter press tour, Schwartz revealed that regardless of Superman & Lois‘ performance — last TV season, the last Arrowverse-adjacent series standing was the network’s second-most watched program (trailing only Walker) — it was decided by Warner Bros. that the small-screen Supes should be grounded.
With James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy filming soon and due out in July 2025, “They don’t want a competing Superman product in the marketplace,” Schwartz told TheWrap. (That reveal now casts in a new light Gunn’s “praise hands emoji” reaction to Superman & Lois starting production on its final season.)
Superman: Legacy, coupled with the late-2024 release of the animated Creature Commandoes series on Max, marks the launch of the “new DCU” being shepherd by DC Studios co-CEOs Gunn and Peter Safran. The cast includes David Corenswet (The Politician) as Clark Kent/Superman, Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) as Lois Lane, Skyler Gisondo (Santa Clarita Diet) as Jimmy Olsen, Nicholas Hoult (The Great) as Lex Luthor and Anthony Carrigan (Barry) as Metamorpho.
Previously, The CW’s Schwartz had suggested that economics were at least partly to blame for the powering down of Arrowverse series.
DC superhero shows “were the hallmarks of The CW for a long time,” Schwartz said back in May at the network Upfronts. “As we look forward and try to make this network bigger and profitable, frankly, as much as we all love those shows and they had their time, they’re not working on linear,”
“Superman & Lois, creatively, is very strong,” Schwartz pointed out then. “It does well in broadcast, it does well in digital… but it’s expensive [and] doesn’t make money for us. And we don’t have the rights to the prior seasons. You need to have a library [for people to find a show]… and the prior seasons are [on Max].”
When Superman & Lois was renewed for what would be its final season (being held for fall 2024), it was hit by significant budget cuts, impacting both the size of its cast and its writing staff. To that end, a number of former series regulars — Wolé Parks as John Henry, Emmanuelle Chriqui as Lana, Inde Navarrette as Sarah, Tayler Buck as Natalie, Erik Valdez as Kyle, Sofia Hasmik as Chrissy and Dylan Walsh as Sam — did not return full-time.
It’s utterly ridiculous that one of best shows on TV is getting shelved to make way for a movie. Superman & Lois came first. Legacy should be put on hold. Also, Tyler Hoechlin is the best Superman since Christopher Reeve donned the cape.
Answer #1 was why season 4 was hard to get, the strike didn’t help, but a yr 5 was doubtful a low rated flash may of hurt the flash movie, I doubt it was a factor. But I know u heard more than once why wasn’t the tv flash the movie flash.
Loved Riverdale, Nancy Drew and Superman and Lois on the CW…sadly bought out by some company ….that cancelled all 3 shows….only to switch programming to sports! How sad….well now I can cancel the extra cable costs package cause I no longer will be watching CW!
The end of the Arrowverse was sad but it was primarily second tier or lower characters. I don’t blame Gunn at all for not wanting two competing Clark Kents. S&L was good but the trinity need to be on the big screen
I mean the answer is a little bit yes and no. Yes, DC wants to control its characters and branding but also the show was never going to likely last much longer on the CW network then this season. It was never going to get a fifth season, it was too expensive.
I get the feeling it was more WB saying ‘it needs to be fine right with a certain amount of quality in all areas to continue so as not to damage the brand so the budget needs to be x and as your licence fee is currently y% of the budget you need to do pay us z’ and CW have gone ‘We can only pay t’ and WB have said fine this next season will be the last. After all the robert pattison batman is in a different universe to the superman legacy batman right and that has a sequel and TV show coming out. And then the joker is different again and that has a sequel.whicv suggests if done right they don’t care
I blame the DCU for a lot of cool rumored things not happening on Arrow or on most of DCTV, which maybe hurt the shows. I understand wanting to save a character or story for a big budget movie, but it’s so weird studios think that audiences can’t separate the TV and movie worlds. It’s not the MCU.
Going by what I have seen there are enough people out there that want to have everything a very specific way that sadly it makes sense that they don’t want to have two versions of the same characters at the same time. Using the Flash as an example. Aside from the issues around one specific actor I saw plenty of people saying they would not watch the movie because Grant Guston wasn’t going to be on the big screen playing The Flash.
I agree with another poster as well, I doubt Superman & Lois would have lasted much longer on the CW either, with how the network handled a lot of the other shows that were cut after the purchase. It might have lasted this season because of interest from the network, but I am highly skeptical it would have last much longer. At least this way we know they are going into the season knowing that the show is ending and hopefully going to give it a feeling of conclusion.
Making the same mistake as with Superboy…. 30 years later these morons never learn…
“Superboy”/”The Adventures of Superboy” (top 10 syndicated show) was killed for “Lois & Clark.”
It was a Viacom show produced by “Superman” producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind.
Warner Brothers sued them during the show’s fourth season.
Rent or stream “The Adventures of Superboy”.
It is similar in tone and storytelling as the first two Christopher Reeve “Superman” films.
Yep, and the guy playing superboy was originally set to be Clark in lois and Clark then got vetoed by superboy staring role
His name is Gerard Christopher.
He has sold “Superboy” DVDs for years, has had some acting roles, and appears at conventions.
He has an Instagram account, and comes across as a modest, handsome, smart man.
He lost that role by not telling them he was the star of Superboy when they explicitly said they didn’t want anyone connected to previous Superman projects.
Watch “Superboy” anyway.
It’s fun, clever, and action packed.
It also has a warm, heartfelt romance between Superboy and Lana Lang.
She’s portrayed by Stacy Haiduk.
I guess he would have lost it if he told them, too. So, he lost it by starring in “Superboy” and not by not telling them about it.
I cant wait then to see how james handles the batmen situation cause you have matt reeves batman, then this batman brave and the bold and a few animated shows like batwheels
then you have possibly three harley quinns-you got lady gaga version, the animated version, and possibly margot robbie cause peacemaker and a few suicide squad characters are coming over to this reboot dc so she might come too.
oh and there is that animated superman show, the one where jack quaid voices and that is allowed to be on air but not s&L, so there is some hypocrisy at play here, nice going james(Sarcasm)
I don’t think they’re worrying much about animated continuity. It’s going more MCU where animated is barely related, or not at all, rather than Star Wars where it REALLY matters.
And I think BatPat or whatever we’re calling him now is stated to be Elseworlds. Sort of like the MCU now has their “Spotlight” line. I preferer the MCU way of doing things, where it’s still canon just not super interconnected…but Elsworlds (AUs) are a big part of DC and I think the creative freedom it offers could be good for DC. If it’s GOOD. I didn’t think the Pattinson movie was that great.
Regardless its still keeping certain versions on and it contradicts his own statement of not having two versions cause of competition.
But then why couldnt S&l be elseworlds? And to the casual viewer who dont keep up with these things that is going to cause confusion possibly to the point of of rage and put off people.
The Reeves film will be done before Gunn’s Batman shows up.. and they dont really count the animated things
I mean maybe the batman 2 but what if he has plans for more, what happens then?
Also why isnt the animated stuff counting, I dont get that logic.
The Batman Franchise is a Franchise with a Penguin Series happening and The Batman Part II and Part III are planned. Not to mention there are plans to spin-off other Bat-Rogues into their own Series.
If that is the case it makes no sense what WB/james is doing especially how WB has said many times they wont even let batman have a live action tv show.
I think I was a bit overmad when I wrote that comment, I will be fair to james maybe he will find a way to have one version per character so like maybe by the time matt reeves finished out his batmanverse james can do his batman, that kind of thing.
And maybe he is counting live action versions and animated versions as seperate.
I don’t see how it would compete. Would people really go “hmm I was thinking of seeing that superman film, but there’s a different superman TV show on TV I’ll just watch that”? I can’t imagine there’s a huge group of people who would think like that.
“I want to go see this Superman movie, but do I have to watch this show, too…? Is it, like, a prequel to the show? Or is the show a prequel to the movie? I’m confused.” I’ve heard versions of this conversation about other properties. It’s an issue of casual fans that are online enough to know other stuff is out there being promoted at the same time, and aware of MCU-style connectedness between movies and tv shows to worry they’re stepping into something complicated. It’s just *muddy*…
I agree tho that in this case it isn’t REALLY that bad b/c S&L is so old and on such a small network, not a streamer. But I don’t really think the CW was going to put enough money behind S&L to make it last a long time anyway, and Gunn et al really want to make this Superman Legacy a HUGE deal, not an afterthought. Trying to get ppl excited when we’ve been burned out… Ppl who liked the previous movies disappointed Henry won’t be back, ppl who didn’t like them skeptical this will be any better. I imagine he wants to make “A New Superman Movie is Coming Out!” a huge headlining event, and having the character also bopping around between ad breaks on a network owned by, like, international criminals just feels a bit…meh.
It started as a huge streaming budget show for hbomax, then cw picked it up last minute, budget was big for 4 years, cut to bone for yr 4, but honestly at this point you could reuse alot of special effects or just let superman loose his powers a few episodes.
Um no Superman and lois has always been a cw show the show you’re thinking about is stargirl which started out as a dc universe exclusive show but then they decided to air it next day on the cw and then season 2 was picked up by the cw as dc universe folded into a comic book app
And yet Warner Bros. Discovery is okay with having two competing Batman properties going on in Theaters at the same time: DC Universe’s Batman: The Brave and the Bold starring [TBD] as Bruce Wayne Batman and The Batman Trilogy starring Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne Batman. They’re okay with that but not with David Corenswet’s Movie Superman and Tyler Hoechlin’s beloved TV Version? How does this work?
The Brave and the Bold will come years after The Batman II. I don’t think there will be a Batman III, unless II does significantly better than I.
The way it’s been talked about is that The Batman was part 1 of a Trilogy, not to mention that The Penguin TV Series is also going to be a direct Sequel to The Batman. I think several of the key Cast members of The Batman have signed Multi-Picture Contracts, including Robert Pattinson himself.
The contracts give you the option of making the film. Not the obligation.
Well brave and the bold might even be further years away because rumor is they might fire the director as hey he did the flash so they want nothing to do with anything part of the old dcu so the only projects right now guranteed are creature commando’s Superman legacy peacemaker season 2 and another season of Harley quinn
First of all seeing Nexstar’s picked representative pointing fingers now to shift the blame does not mean they are not guilty for their cheap practices since they are the ones that pushed and pushed to have the newest Season have it’s budget be slashed and also it’s cast. (Same crap that has happened with Bob Hearts Abishola in CBS) just to cover up their greedy & cheap colors.
But it also would not surprise me at all that this was WBD’s nonsensical decision. It is always thanks to their ridiculous character embargoes that only ever affect DCTV products. They did not let Arrow use Suicide Squad so they killed Deadshot and Waller, then banned as well Slade and never let them used Booster Gold nor Ted Kord because they “had big plans” for them. And the least is said about how they took Constantine from Legends to do a DCEU show that never even came to realize the better.
They never did this when Smallville was airing it’s 5th Season on what was known as “The WB” in 2005 while also sharing sneak peeks of the upcoming Superman Returns for June 2006. But now there can only be 1 version and if you are not David Corensweat, you know where the door is. Gunn is at this point as responsible for this because he is in charge of all DC content now since November 1st, 2022. He is the co-CEO of DC Studios and he decides what goes and what does not. This “WBD is to be blamed” while Can be true seems like a scapegoat so he does not face the responsibility of now his Supes film being the only way you can enjoy the character, just like how the only live-action DC show that did not face Zaslav’s axe was his own again, Peacemaker.
And don’t even get me started on how they are not gonna wait for Matt Reeves’ Batman films to be over to then release Brave & the Bold. This is hypocrisy at it’s finest and another reason for me to not spend a single penny in this cashcow grab called DCU.
If you really need to cancel a TV show with modest budget in order to prop up your own movie take production, it says a lot about you.
We stopped watching this show due to the stereotypical casting…
IKR? They cast a HUMAN as a Kryptonian. Typical Hollywood.
But they don’t have stereotypical casting. If they had, everyone would be White.
This a cop out…The flash appeared in Justice League movies long bere Grant Gustin’s show ended. Also staying true the multiverse, u can have more than one superman.
#Superman&Lois made for good tv. The powers that be just don’t have the vision.
WB have always been incredibly inconsistent on this “rule” though. Flash was fine in both for years, but Deadshot and Harley Quinn and Deathstroke were all pulled from use in Arrow because of films.
WB & DC are weird about things like that. They didn’t want Superman to appear at all in the Arrowverse at the beginning, but then suddenly it was okay to have him appear on Supergirl instead of just being hinted at. They have resisted having Batman TV shows & didn’t want him to appear in the Arrowverse either, beyond the behind the back shot they had in season 1. They made Arrow stop using members of the Suicide Squad & some were even killed off, including the woman who brought them together, Amanda Waller. So really this decision doesn’t really surprise me.
It’s almost as though decisions were being made by different people at different times b/c DC was a mess with no real leadership.
Which was the point of putting Gunn in charge. Remains to be seen how much of an improvement that will be.
Sorry, BS meter going insane here.
Yes, in the past DC had a tendency of getting rid of anything on TV that was going to be in movies. Flash was the biggest exception. But characters like Constantine and Amanda Waller were specifically written out due to their expected movie appearances. In the former case they even kept the actor as a new character.
But even before the reboot movie, CW had a bloodbath of cancelling all of their shows due to their financial state and Superman and Lois was only saved after making massive budget cuts as it is.
So I’m not buying any of this at all. The show was going to be dropped regardless of the movies.
Heck, they admitted that it was a call between Superman and Lois vs Gotham Knights. If the movie was the issue, they’d just opt to save the latter.
Really? Omg I can’t believe it! I’m so pissed off right now. Superman and Lois was a gem of a TV Show and they cancelled it for a movie???
I don’t care about the DC cinematographic universe (nor Marvel), I don’t care a lot about super hero productions (although I kept tabs with the Arrowverse series), but I started to watch Superman and Lois when it came out and I enjoyed it A LOT. Clark is portrayed not only as an almighty being but also as a caring father, struggling to raise their teenage sons… And also Lois, talking about being human: what about the breast cancer storyline?! None of the series of the Arrowverse was bold enough to tackle such a sensitive topic, cause it was all about their superhero problems in their superhero world!
And a simple but awfully important detail is that the Superman from the series is not only the hero of an american town but it really gives the sense of an “universal hero” when they take time to portray Superman saving people in Thailand and other countries, per se (when it’s not convenient for the plot, cause these “danger abroad” is not caused by the villain of the season). Hopefully this upcoming James Gunn movie will bomb!
I mean, it makes sense. Gunn wants to have a cohesive universe instead of the mess DC live action has been for years. Still sucks b/c I don’t really see how a little CW show set in a different period of the character’s life competes with a big movie…esp when Superman has been played by SO many actors.
All I can say is Gunn better make it worth it. I’ve yet to see any announcements of DC projects that get me excited and I’m no fan of GOTG, so I’m keeping my expectations tempered.
I also agree it probably wasn’t going to last much longer at the CW, being so expensive.
The thing is the only mess regarding live-action DC has always been with in the movies realm, the TV side, their peers, never have had too much convoluted issues of keeping up with stuff like continuity or confusing storylines. Many got the hang of DCTV, so seeing this area that was always easier to follow be affects just so the films
can thrive is annoying, rude and unfair.
Such a shame it was a good show. The Man of Steel who had all of these powers and he made many missteps as a father. But he loved his family. I love how fearless Lois was in this and how she commanded respect. The storyline of her cancer battle was beautifully done. That being said, I was ready to give up on the show when they slaughtered 85% of the cast. All of that time the audience spent getting to know those characters and they just cut them and moved the family off the farm?!
Didn’t make it past a couple of episodes of Superman and Lois, so I’m not bothered by the cancellation. I am annoyed at the reasoning. So in a genre that has multiple versions/universes this is suddenly a problem? What a pile of a steaming pile of BS.
I’m not a fan of James Gunn, I never got past his ‘jokes’ that got him temporarily fired from marvel, but this just adds another reason why I won’t be watching Superman Legacy.
Revenge of the Bat-Embargo aka Bat-Embargo 2: Kryptonian Boogaloo.
The old “audiences can’t comprehend of multiple different simultaneous versions of a character” thought process.
Sad that this decision was made. Fantastic show and can’t wait for season 4.
As a REAL Superman fan who: watched Superman (1978) on the big screen as a child, collected Action Comics through the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, have the full pristine 12 issue Crisis on Infinite Earths in his collection, watched all of the Superman cartoons from the 40’s to 80’s and while we’re at it lets include the same for Batman (Year One and Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller) etc etc….. I can confidently say that without a doubt the nonsense that the WB and CW have put out since Smalleville 2001 has been garbage. “Superman & Lois, creatively, is very strong?” False. As I’ve said before; James Gunn appears to know what he’s doing and hopefully Superman Legacy will improve the story telling that has been off course for over 23 years. We’ll see.
t’s utterly ridiculous that one of best shows on TV is getting shelved to make way for a movie
I call BS, the owners of CW were cleaning house. Simple as that. Does WB suck when in comes to DC? Yes they do. Gunn has already mentioned Else Worlds Stories etc.. People are smart enough to know the difference
Always the shows your actually want to watch they get rid of…
ARGH Why is DC always like this?!
What a lot of people seem to be forgetting is that CW is also under new ownership and the new TPTB have decided they want an older audience and the Arrowverse doesn’t fit into that new plan. I’m not opposed to either Superman & Lois nor against the movie, but under the circumstances I’m surprised we’re getting 1 more season at all. One thing that probably would have helped is if DCU had followed the example of the MCU in that the TV shows were connected to the movies so as to make a larger more contiguous universe, rather than a bunch of shows that were loosely connected via a multiverse where Superman & Lois doesn’t even mention Supergirl simply because they’re supposed to be on different parallel Earth’s. Granted, that same multiverse could easily handle a TV series and a movie on at the same time without necessarily tripping over each other, but just remember that TPTB now in charge of CW are moving away from “kiddie” stuff as they see it.