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Tom Welling Confirms He Didn’t Want To Go Full-On Superman In The Smallville Finale

Tom Welling reveals the thinking behind the lack of full-on Superman in the Smallville finale.

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It is a subject that has been debated among Smallville fans for years: A significant number of them insist that Tom Welling would have done the whole “Superman costume” thing in the 2011 Smallville series finale if that was asked of him.

Now, six years later, Tom did a fairly extensive interview with Entertainment Weekly where he talks about the reasons why he did not want to.

“It was something that we discussed before we ever shot the pilot with [creators] Al [Gough] and Miles [Millar],” Welling told EW about the genesis of the whole “no flights, no tights” thing that brought him to the series. “We literally had a sit down where we talked about the show and I asked about the suit and the tights and the flying, and they said, ‘No, absolutely not,’ part of the reason being is that show is about a teenager trying to figure out who he is. They felt that once Clark put on the cape and the suit, life became too easy, in a sense. They wanted to focus on who this character was before that. And, at the time, because of where visual effects and special effects and stunts were, it would be too expensive. That’s mainly why they save that for movies, more or less.”

As for the series finale, which gave fans only a shirt-rip that left many disappointed, Welling wouldn’t say it was his decision, but it sounds a lot like it. “It was literally something that the entire series was behind in not doing that,” he said. “We did things on that show where we didn’t call them powers, we called them abilities — you weren’t allowed to say powers; you just weren’t because Clark didn’t know they were powers, he just knew he had those abilities, so little things like kept us grounded and kept us faced onto the story we were telling about this character, not what he could do with these abilities.”

Welling also dropped the bombshell that there was an idea for Clark to suit up earlier in the series finale, where we’d see full-on Superman, and he was instrumental in making suer it didn’t happen. “Our series finale was supposed to be, in the first act, Clark puts on the suit and flies around, saves Lois on a plane, and does this other stuff,” Welling revealed. “It was a call that I had with Peter Roth, who is the head of Warner Bros. Television, who’s a good friend of mine and we have a great relationship. I said, ‘That’s not our show, Peter.’ He’s like, ‘No, it’s going to be great,’ and I go, ‘Yeah, but just think about what we’ve been doing. If we just jump into that, we haven’t earned it.’”

In the end, the actor was happy with the decision they made to end with a shirt rip. “We jumped onto this idea that at the end of the show, the idea is that Clark becomes Superman and he’s out there, and we know he’s out there, but we can’t go with him, but that we know and we feel good that he’s out there doing good,” he said. “That was what we strove for, and I think we hit it. I liked the ending of the series, because it’s like, ‘Yes, he did it!’ I hope the audience didn’t feel like we didn’t show them something that they needed to see. I felt like we gave them the jumping off point for their imagination as to what could happen.”

You can read the complete Entertainment Weekly interview here. Our thanks again to Zach from Always Hold On To Smallville for the heads-up, and if you’d like to talk about this with other fans, the KryptonSite forums still exist!

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2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Rob Lopez

    August 8, 2017 at 7:08 pm

    You did earn it, Tom. Do a Superman limited series under the Smallville banner and you will see how many of us are behind you.

  2. Christina

    August 8, 2017 at 8:50 pm

    We wanted the suit, Tom! I hope his decision didn’t change it so much to let Tess Mercer die. That’s why I didn’t re-watch the finale. I think it would be far greater with the way it was originally written. Come on Tom! Climax!

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Smallville

Smallville Animated Update: It May Be A While…

On TalkVille, the reality of the current status of the Smallville animated project was discussed.

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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.

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Smallville

John Schneider Added To Salute to Smallville 2025 in Chicago!

John Schneider has been added to the 2025 Salute to Smallville convention in Chicago from Creation Entertainment.

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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.

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Smallville

Annette O’Toole’s Big Smallville Regret

Annette O’Toole discusses her biggest regret from her time on Smallville.

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Smallville’s Annette O’Toole recently spoke with Salon magazine about her biggest regret from her time on the show. It’s a topic she has discussed on the TalkVille podcast, and it is something she talked about in KryptonSite’s interview to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series premiere.

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.”

You can watch the clip below.

 

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