Can you believe it has now been eight years since the series finale of Smallville aired on The CW?
The two-hour event aired May 13, 2011 and brought Michael Rosenbaum back to our screens as Lex Luthor. Clark Kent embraced his destiny, even if we didn’t get to see a lot of it on screen. Lots of old faces returned, and the John Williams fanfare ended it all.
In the years since, we’ve seen Tom Welling return to TV on Lucifer Season 3 and he’s finally embracing fandom and attending conventions, which many of his co-stars are doing. When he’s not appearing in big movies like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Michael Rosenbaum has become an incredible interviewer with his Inside of You podcast. Kristin Kreuk had a hit show with Beauty and the Beast and is now back on our screens with Burden of Truth.Erica Durance starred in Saving Hope and even had a recurring role on Supergirl;Laura Vandervoort also appeared on Supergirl in addition to her series leading role in Bitten.
Justin Hartley‘s career exploded when he became a part of one of broadcast TV’s biggest hits, This Is Us; the show was just renewed for a whopping three seasons. Annette O’Toole dipped into the Marvel Universe for a role on The Punisher; meanwhile, John Glover played a Lionel Luthor-like role in this year’s Shazam. Cassidy Freeman had a multi-season part as one of the leads on Longmire; Aaron Ashmore stars in Syfy’s Killjoys. John Schneider stars in The Haves and Have Nots, though he has had some troubles including the creation of a studio that was severely affected by floods.
Smallville creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar have run two successful series in recent years – The Shannara Chronicles and Into The Badlands. That is in addition to their movie work – I Am Number Four felt very Smallville in many of the best ways.
The post-Smallville life hasn’t been perfect for some. Allison Mack‘s association with the NXIVM “sex cult” has put the actress under a magnifying glass which also sadly has probably affected some perceptions of the TV series and Chloe’s role in it. The ultimate result of Allison’s troubles will be decided in New York courts; fortunately, Mack seems repentant for the things that went on.
It’s also incredible to note that while Smallville, near the end there, seemed unappreciated by then-CW head Dawn Ostroff, her successor Mark Pedowitz seems to love DC superhero shows. Arrow started the next generation of series which will balloon to a whopping six series in the 2019-2020 season, including The Flash, Supergirl, Black Lightning, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, and, premiering this Fall, Batwoman. Can you imagine the alternate universe where Smallville could have inspired or led to so many spinoffs?
It is not just The CW that is in on all this action, either. There’s a Super-show on Syfy about Superman’s grandfather called Krypton, and the DC Universe subscription service, while not having Smallville (that’s on Hulu), has added series about the Titans, Stargirl, Doom Patrol, and Swamp Thing.
But long before we had a leafy Swamp Thing back on our TV screens, it all started with a leafy little hamlet.
On a recent episode of Michael Rosenbaum and Tom Welling’s TalkVille podcast, they had the show’s creator Al Gough as a call-in guest, and among the topics discussed was the Smallville animated project that they’ve been trying to get off the ground. Unfortunately, Gough brought up the reality that especially with regime changes at the studio, it may be a while.
“Regime change” refers to changes in leadership at the studio or network. As an example, the regime changed massively when Smallville moved from The WB (who had executives that loved them) to The CW (where Dawn Ostroff was more interested in “pretty rich white girls with problems” shows and kept trying to kill Smallville).
“The problem with most projects in development in any studio and any network is regime change, and Warners has obviously gone through a lot, and 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,” Gough said in discussion with the actors. He pointed out that everything comes around in one form or another, pointing to Hulu’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival as such a thing.
So, don’t give up hope… but for now, it seems it’s not happening anytime soon, if at all.
John Schneider is the latest actor to be added to the guest list for Creation Entertainment’s second “Salute To Smallville” convention, happening September 13-14 in Chicago. Schneider portrayed Clark’s human father Jonathan Kent from Seasons 1-5 and returned for several episodes in the show’s final season.
Schneider will be joining Tom Welling, Michael Rosenbaum, Kristin Kreuk, Erica Durance, John Glover, Aaron Ashmore, Adrianne Palicki, and Alaina Huffman at this year’s event! Last year’s convention was a fantastic experience and it’s well worth checking out! You can read more about Salute to Smallville and purchase tickets here.
DISCLAIMER: KryptonSite’s Craig Byrne has created web graphics and websites for Creation Entertainment in addition to hosting their 2024 Salute to Smallville event.
Basically, it was the notion that she never was able to share scenes with Christopher Reeve. While the plan originally was for a scene between them in the Season 4 premiere “Crusade,” in the two appearances that Reeve did make on Smallville failed to reunite O’Toole with Reeve, which is a shame, as Annette played Lana Lang to Christopher Reeve’s Clark Kent in the film Superman III.
“I never understood it,” she said. “I should have picked up the phone and called the producers and said what are you thinking? You’ve got the prior Lana Lang and Superman. Why aren’t you putting them in a scene together? It kind of broke my heart. It was kind of like ‘if they don’t see, I’m not gonna tell ’em! They don’t understand!’ So who’s regretting it? Not them. I knew it would be the last time I’d ever get to see Chris, so, yeah, I’m very sad about that.”
