CW’s Crisis On Infinite Earths

[crazy_asian_man]

Nov 14, 2019 9:32:29 GMT -5 Metallo said:

I think he’s just tired of working with networks or wants to do things they aren’t interested in. As good as some of is shows are their success in the ratings have been a mixed bag. None of them were huge hits. Even Buffys quality was pretty even in later seasons.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was kind of a bait and switch on his and everyone’s part. Fans thought he was going to be much more involved since he was selling it but what we got was his brother and sister in law running things. Part of the shows problems were because of all the crap they had to deal with from Perlmutter and Marvel as well as being caught in the middle of the Marvel Entertainment civil war/corporate divorce/Feige-Perlmutter pissing contest.

I don’t blame him for Age of Ultron either. It’s clear he dealt with a lot of interference from the top. I’d imagine all the problems on that movie were one of the final reasons Feige had enough with Perlmutter before Captain America Civil War was the straw that broke the camels back.

Buffy's next to last season was a mess... Whedon put someone else mostly in charge as he spread himself too thin with also overseeing Angel and Firefly I believe at the same time- but fortunately he came back for the last season to kind of save it so it could leave on a high note.

Agents of SHIELD - first season I thought was so underwhelming it was painful. Second season was stronger and I thought got better from there--- though I still found half of the main characters as designed incredibly boring. So, the writing arguably must be pretty good if I was still watching despite not caring about half of the characters.

Age of Ultron I thought was 'good, but not great'.

Three factors I think really undermined it:

#1: Ultron was never scary as he should have been. If he was shown to kill ONE innocent in the beginning (I know it sounds morbid, but)--- even 'off-camera'/pg-13 way.... then he could have been as scary as Heath Ledger's Joker. With Avengers: infinity War- the brutal killing of Loki and Heimdall & seeing half of the ship and crew trashed put a sense of threat for the rest of the two pictures.

#2: Tony really wasn't forced to face anything despite making Ultron. The edge that the Civil War movie had, should have been here, I thought once Tony created Ultron. For him to feel it only in a later movie was 'convenient' and always felt false to me.

#3: The "Hawkeye Hallmark Family" and the "Widow loves Hulk" subplots. The Hawkeye family was too saccharine imo--- especially with how I grew up with such a dark character in Hawkeye. The "Widow loves Hulk" plot was stronger with the extended bits that were deleted. Whedon said that Widow should have been somewhat suicidal towards the end, and it's funny how a couple of minutes that were cut might have helped make that be more persuasive.

Anyhow- I'm glad that the Rousso brothers were assigned Civil War & the last two Avengers films- it might have been interesting if Whedon had only scripted Ultron & the Rousso brothers had directed instead and had final say. But, still... overall, I can't and shouldn't complain about the quality of the Avengers films- considering how it ended, it made up for any lapses as it exceeded my expectations.

[Metallo]

Lots to speculate about. They’re definitely teasing some big things. Death of Superman homage with the torn cape. But which Superman? Welling? Someone else? That looks like Wayne manor and an old batsuit in the Batwoman teaser. Could this be where we see Conroy as an old retired Bruce Wayne?

It all reminds me of Rip Hunters lines from the legends of tomorrow pilot where he talked of seeing men of steel die and dark knights fall in the future. Wonder if they’ll tie that into this somehow? Looks like the emblem from Shipps flash costume to me. More hints that he’s the one that dies.

[Metallo]

photos from Crisis On Infinite Earths: Hour One

[crazy_asian_man]

Great photos.... but it makes me realize how colorless Supergirl's new costume is.

[Metallo]

I think the colors themselves are fine it’s just not much variety. The gold is pale and pretty sparse at that.

[crazy_asian_man]

Nov 18, 2019 21:04:15 GMT -5 Metallo said:

I think the colors themselves are fine it’s just not much variety. The gold is pale and pretty sparse at that.

The removal of Superman's red trunks dulled that design imo---- and now with Supergirl's new suit matching his.... it takes both costumes down a big notch from feeling like the old comics imo...

[Metallo]

I like that they match. That makes sense. Problem is both suits need to be redone. I like some things about her new suit better like the raised S and the shade of blue but it needs to bring back some Classic elements. Go back to the old cape attachment and tone down the piping. As far as the trunks that was an across the board dc comics problem. It was probably one of their mandates. Unlike Cavills super suit they at least tried to include some red in the midsection with the belt to break up all that blue.

[Metallo]

Photos from Crisis On Infinite Earths: Hour Two

[Metallo]

Interesting. Those images seem to confirm a few bombsheck story elements. It looks like some of the events of Kingdom Come did happen to Rouths Superman (who looks great btw). I wonder if Conroys Bruce and Rouths Clark come from the same earth? Conroys giving off some heavy Kingdom Come vibes too with what looks like an exoskeleton. He has to be a different Batman from the one on Earth One. In the Batwoman show he’s either missing or even dead. If Conroy is meant to be the Bruce Wayne only from the future this spoils that he’s clearly not. I’m guessing Kate Kane was just sent to this alternate earth to recruit Conroys Batman.

[crazy_asian_man]

Nov 19, 2019 17:46:43 GMT -5 Metallo said:

Interesting. Those images seem to confirm a few bombsheck story elements. It looks like some of the events of Kingdom Come did happen to Rouths Superman (who looks great btw). I wonder if Conroys Bruce and Rouths Clark come from the same earth? Conroys giving off some heavy Kingdom Come vibes too with what looks like an exoskeleton. He has to be a different Batman from the one on Earth One. In the Batwoman show he’s either missing or even dead. If Conroy is meant to be the Bruce Wayne only from the future this spoils that he’s clearly not. I’m guessing Kate Kane was just sent to this alternate earth to recruit Conroys Batman.

You're the man for always putting up this cool stuff- I'm wayyy too lazy to keep up let alone upload!

Bummed to hear that the Kent part sounds like just a moment or two.... but can't wait to actually see this series as a whole & cross fingers that either Routh's Superman has a satisfying conclusion... or that they open the door for him to keep coming back--- though age-wise, you'd think that they should do things sooner than later with Routh as Supes (hence, another reason why I wish it was him leading the Superman tv show).

[Metallo]

Who knows. Maybe Routh will get his own show or be part of some kind of project. With Stargirl happening Rouths Superman could end up part of a live action JSA. Two Superman on tv? I’ll take it.

[Metallo]

[crazy_asian_man]

Nov 22, 2019 15:13:06 GMT -5 Metallo said:

I can't help but wonder how much convincing Berlianti's group had to do with the higher ups, and how much 'unpaid' hours Berlianti & co got for trying to get as many fan favorites to the table for this event to happen.

I still wish the individual shows were all stronger, but I am definitely getting excited for this- but I have to tone down my expectations and remember NOT to compare it to $200 million dollar Marvel films, but just be grateful for the cameos for this event.

[crazy_asian_man]

As an aside: doesn't Routh look AWESOME in the clasp-free SR-inspired costume?!?

[Metallo]

Yes. Not that I mind Hoechlins costume but I’d make some changes. The basics are there it just needs some tweaks imo. I think they want something more injustice looking or the clasps make it more comfortable for the actor and keeps the cape more secure. Just my guess. I know Benoist said she basically had a corset under her suit to keep it all secure and it was pretty uncomfortable and harder to move in. In the new suit she does look more relaxed and comfortable.

When you look at all the ways they experimented with how Dean Cains cape attached or was secured or tucked into his suit it makes sense.

[Metallo]

[Metallo]

[Metallo]

[Metallo]

[crazy_asian_man]

Dec 3, 2019 15:36:37 GMT -5 Metallo said:

Very cool--- would have liked to have seen ONE Routh flying shot- but in some ways, I wish I never was aware of all these cameos and just got surprised. I'm way too spoiled now, wanting more from these cameos.

[Metallo]

There’s one flying shot of what appears to be Superman. It’s just not clear which one it is. I think when this trailer was cut together they were still working on the effects. It seems like a lot of the visuals weren’t finished and with new characters since some of them would be all new renders it might take longer.

[Metallo]

www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/heat-vision/cws-crisis-infinite-earths-continues-2-issue-dc-comic-book-starting-month-1259711

How The CW's 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' Is Jumping to Comics

6:00 AM PST 12/5/2019 by Graeme McMillan


'Arrow' executive producer Marc Guggenheim and comic book creator Marv Wolfman discuss expanding the tale: "this story we were looking to tell was actually bigger than the five hours we’re going to have for broadcast."

All of reality is threatened when the CW’s superhero shows begin “Crisis on Infinite Earths” this Sunday, launching a storyline that will encompass five different series — Supergirl, Batwoman, The Flash, Arrow, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow — as well as multiple realities. But, as it turns out, the story is even bigger than initially announced.

Two further chapters of the story will appear on the comic book page, with DC releasing a two-issue Crisis on Infinite Earths Giant series featuring familiar Arrowverse characters dealing with the threat of the Anti-Monitor on the printed page as well as on-screen. The two-part series is written by someone familiar with comic book crises, Marv Wolfman — writer of the original Crisis on Infinite Earths comic book series in 1985 — with Arrowverse executive producer Marc Guggenheim onboard as co-writer.

Each issue will feature a 24-page main story illustrated by Tom Derenick, Trevor Scott and John Kalisz, with an additional back-up strip also written by Guggenheim and Wolfman, illustrated by Tom Grummett, Danny Miki and Chris Sotomayor. Both issues will also reprint material from the first Crisis on Infinite Earths comic book series, with the second issue also including material from DC Universe: Legacies No. 6, from 2010.

Ahead of the oncoming super heroic apocalypse, The Hollywood Reporter talked to Guggenheim and Wolfman about the comic book chapters, including the reveal of just which characters fans can expect to see. (Felicity Smoak fans, you’ll be happy.)

Marc, obviously the shows have been building to Crisis for some time now, but can you talk to the origins of this particular project? When did the idea of a comic book chapter to the television event come about, and how did Marv come into that?

Marc Guggenheim: It came pretty early on in the process. We were marking out big picture stuff to be able to pitch something to the showrunners and it occurred to me that this story we were looking to tell was actually bigger than the five hours we’re going to have for broadcast.

I thought to myself, "This is a potentially once in a lifetime kind of opportunity; I don’t think we’re ever going to do a crossover of this scale and ambition again. Certainly not for a good long while.’ I thought that having a comic book tie into [Crisis] would not only be a cool thing to do, it would allow us access to all of the characters that we don’t have in the crossover proper for logistical reasons, or financial reasons, or creative reasons.

So it was basically killing two birds with one stone. It allows us to tell a major piece of the story that we’re designing, with characters and concepts that we couldn’t achieve in live action.

I went to Dan Evans at DC — he’s the main guy there that I work with on the shows — and said, ‘I’ve got this crazy idea, can we do a comic book tie-in?’ Dan discussed it with the folks at DC, and it was suggested, why don’t you co-write this with Marv? The moment that was suggested to me, it was a no-brainer. I wasn’t originally going to write any of it, but the opportunity to work with Marv was too good to pass up.

Marv, Crisis on Infinite Earths, the original comic book series from the mid-80s, is something that’s come to define not only your career, but the very idea of the superhero event story as a whole. What’s it like to return to something like this, three decades later, especially in light of what’s followed?

Marv Wolfman: It still hasn’t completely come together in my mind, because the idea of having five different television shows come together is something I never thought would happen, and then having a bunch of comic books tie in as well — you don’t think in that way. You don’t think it will ever happen, so you move on and think about something else. (Laughs.)

It’s a phenomenal testimony in so many ways to the work that George Perez and I did back in 1985, and we could not be more thrilled by it.

You talk about the work you and George did on Crisis, but also The New Teen Titans. At the time those books were being released, it felt as if you two were ahead of your time with what you were doing with comics, and now you can see the influence of what you were doing not just in comics, but obviously, in movies, and on television. Is that something that’s been rewarding to see?

Wolfman: It’s unbelievably rewarding. I don’t know if it’s that we were ahead of our time or not, but we did books — on the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, certainly on Titans — that we wanted to see ourselves. So much of Crisis actually comes out of what I was thinking about as a seven year-old; it’s been mentioned before, so I’m not making it up for this particular thing, but back then, DC was just starting Justice League of America and the like, but they didn’t have enough characters back then. As a kid, I wanted to see every DC character, not just Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman. I wanted all of the characters in there.

So I made up my own story, and put everyone in there, including a character in a satellite that I called the Librarian, because he was cataloging all the characters. Obviously, I did not have a good sense of names at seven years old. So, this is a child’s dream come true in so many ways.

I thought it had come true just with the comics Crisis, but to have it happen with a mass medium like television — it’s unbelievable to me. I know that George and I are both absolutely thrilled to see that work we did 35 years ago is still resonating.

Marc, Marv just called this a child’s dream come true and I have to ask, were you reading Crisis growing up? Is this a child’s dream come true for you, too, getting to work on the television Crisis, never mind getting to work with Marv on the comic book?

Guggenheim: Completely. I was 15 when Crisis came out, and I had been reading Titans up to that point, so I didn’t just read the main event, I saw everything leading up to it. I saw the Monitor be introduced in various DC books in the year leading up to Crisis, and that was — it was a revelation! No one had ever done a comic book event on that scale before. A year before, Marvel had done Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars, which was seminal and groundbreaking in its own way, but nothing of the magnitude and ambition that Crisis displayed. Frankly, it just blew my 15 year old self away.

You mention the lead up to the comic book Crisis, and it feels like the shows have done something similar, was that intentional?

Guggenheim: Absolutely. Wherever possible, we tried to take our cues from what Marv and everyone at DC at the time was doing. Even down to this comic book tie-in; back when Marv and George did the original Crisis, there were tie-in comics to that event. If you picked up a copy of Superman during that time, you could read a Superman tie-in story, and that was happening across the whole publishing line.

In many ways I feel like Marv and George just gave us the answers to the whole test. We’re just running their plays.

Marc, you talked about the comic book chapters having story that didn’t fit into the five hours of television. How did you decide which characters you were going to focus on, and what story you could tell?

Guggenheim: I was on a flight back from Prague, and I was working on two things — the beat sheet for the fourth hour of the crossover, as well as a proposal for the comic book tie-in, so I was basically swimming in the same waters, which allowed the comic book to be well-integrated with the live action component.

As far as characters, I started off with Felicity Smoak. I think, of all the characters that are not in the crossover that I think people wanted to see, Felicity is probably at the top of that list. I included the Ray, from the Crisis on Earth-X crossover we did a few years ago as well as the animated series we did for CW Seed, and then there was going to be another character — a brand new character, because I thought it could be fun to add to the toolbox, but we had a lot of creative discussions, and it was decided, let’s use a pre-established Arrowverse character, so I chose Nyssa Al-Ghul, because Katrina [Law] is on another show and wasn’t available to participate in the crossover.

Finally, there’s Wally West, because, again, scheduling limitations prevented the actor from being in the live action… but it’s easy to populate your comic book with whoever you want. Using those core four, we worked out our story and brought in characters like the Atom… and Batwoman… and Sara Lance… and Barry Allen. But it’s those core four that really drive our story.

Judging from the first issue, it really feels like part of the main story; it didn’t feel like an ancillary spin-off. We’ve all seen comic book tie-ins to movies or television stories that feel like after-the-fact additions; this didn’t feel like that.

Guggenheim: That was very much by design. In fact, Marv and I were talking about that this morning; neither of us like it when the tie-ins are superficial, or with trade-dress only.

Wolfman: One of the things when I was growing up, again, was buying the tie-in novel and it never feeling like the actual show. I remember a Prisoner novel that began in a way that the Prisoner show never would have began. It made me feel so angry I threw the book across the room.

This was created to tie in perfectly with the CW shows. Everything felt correct; I wasn’t worried about if the characters felt right, because Marc was there to ensure that it was correct, as I was on the comic book side. I thought it was just unbelievable, because I’d never seen it work like that before. It feels perfectly tied in with the TV shows, because it has the same people working on it. I think that’s great.

I’m curious — there’s two issues of Crisis on Infinite Earths Giant that you’re using to build on the television story. Was this enough? Could you have kept going?

Guggenheim: We had a list of where the various universes were, where everything fell, but as big as this thing is — and it’s a 48-page story over two issues, with a 16 page back-up story — but as big as the DC universe is, as expansive as it is, there were still worlds that we didn’t get a chance to visit, that we would have liked to.

***

Crisis on Infinite Earths Giant No. 1 will debut exclusively in Walmart Dec. 15, ahead of a comic store release the following month. The second issue will be available at Walmart Jan. 19, with a comic store release in February.

Very interesting idea. Makes sense because it gives them some extra freedom to do things they simply couldn’t with the tv shows because of budget or the drawbacks of reality stopping them. In this age of media cross pollination and synergy something like Th is is perfectly at home. I’m definitely going to have to pick these ups.

[Metallo]

nypost.com/2019/12/05/the-cws-crisis-on-infinite-earths-dc-superhero-crossover-is-spectacular/amp/

The CW’s ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ DC superhero crossover is spectacular

By Reed Tucker

December 5, 2019 | 4:18pm

Does Burt Ward’s Robin from the 1960s “Batman” television series know Michael Keaton’s Batman from the 1989 movie? Does Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker live in the same universe as the CW’s “Batwoman?” What would happen if Brandon Routh’s Man of Steel from 2006’s “Superman Returns” met Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman from TV’s “Supergirl?”

For superhero fans, these are not small questions. They are weighty concerns to be pondered during long nights staring at the stars or into yellowed long boxes storing their comic collection. And they’re about to be answered. In a way.

Sunday begins “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” a five-part crossover event encompassing the six superhero shows on the CW that make up the so-called “Arrowverse.” The ambitious event finds the heroes uniting to stop a powerful force that’s destroying reality. But it also explores the idea of the DC multiverse — the concept that every movie, comic and TV program ever produced by the company behind Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman have all taken place in the same universe, albeit on different parallel Earths. The crossover has been carefully building for years and will involve dozens of characters, some of whom will undergo major changes. Others may not make it out alive. The epic scope and finality of “Crisis” is rare on TV and recalls a recent cinematic venture by DC’s rival.

“This is our version of ‘Avengers: Endgame,’” John Wesley Shipp tells The Post. “What Marvel has done so right in the film universe, DC has done extraordinarily well in the TV universe.” Shipp played the Flash in a 1990 CBS series and reprises the role in “Crisis” as Barry Allen, a speedster from a parallel dimension known as Earth 90. His appearance is just one of many callbacks to DC lore.

“We wanted to touch as many strands of the DC tapestry as possible,” “Crisis” architect Marc Guggenheim tells The Post. “In some cases, it’s quick glimpses. In other cases, it’s an entire scene or a story across a couple episodes.” “Crisis,” which is based on a 1985 miniseries by Marv Wolfman and George Perez, was initially hinted at in the first episode of “The Flash” in 2014. That pilot ended with a glimpse of a newspaper from 2024 proclaiming that the Flash (Grant Gustin) had vanished in the “Crisis.” That tease, however, had no firm plan behind it.

“I would call it a hope and a dream,” Guggenheim says. “We didn’t even know enough to hope. It was more like whatever we can sort of head-fake toward. It wasn’t until a year ago when we get the corporate permission that we were allowed to do this.”

Last year’s “Arrowverse” crossover event planted the seeds for “Crisis,” exploring the multiple Earths and introducing the Monitor (LaMonica Garrett), a mysterious cosmic being who recruits the heroes to stop the universe’s destruction at the hands of the Anti-Monitor (also Garrett). When planning “Crisis,” Guggenheim and his team compiled a list of 100 “cool things” they’d like to see. “If you had asked me back then if we’d get as many of the people, Easter eggs and concepts that we ultimately did, I would have told you you were smoking crack,” Guggenheim says.

For example, the writers snuck in lines of dialogue from 1986’s comic series “The Dark Knight Returns,” and the score pays homage to other shows. Even background objects recall previous DC material, reportedly including a newspaper front page with a nod to Keaton’s Batman. Actors from other shows will also make returns. Tom Welling and Erica Durance, who played Clark Kent and Lois Lane on “Smallville” (2001-2011), pop up. Kevin Conroy, who voiced the lead character in “Batman: The Animated Series,” will appear as an aged Bruce Wayne. Eagle-eye viewers might also spot Burt Ward, who played Robin from 1966-68, making a cameo wearing a sweater with colors reminiscent of his Robin costume and walking a dog that readers of the 1950s Batman comic would swear looks a lot like Ace the Bat-Hound.

“All these people that grew up watching ‘Batman,’ their kids are watching our show in reruns,” Ward, who now runs a dog rescue, tells The Post. “The reaction [to my cameo] caught my wife and me off guard. We just weren’t expecting this.”

Not that producers got everything they wanted. Guggenheim says that some actors sought for cameos were busy on other projects (such as Cameron Cuffe from Syfy’s “Krypton”) while others were too expensive. Michael Rosenbaum, who played Lex Luthor on “Smallville,” wrote on Twitter that he passed on making an appearance. “When I started hearing how many people they were involving, I began to wonder, does this have the danger of devolving into just a succession of cameos?” Shipp says. “What I discovered is that this is rich storytelling, as well as tying up loose ends and presenting Valentines.”

The crossover also has some of the same goals as the 1985 comic book series, which attempted to streamline DC’s muddled publishing continuity and provide a fresh start for stories. “I think ‘Crisis’ comes at a perfect time,” Garrett tells The Post. “We are in a transition. The fact that ‘Arrow’ is ending [after this season], and that’s the show that started all this. There’s no other way to bring on ‘Crisis’ than right now.”

“The thing I said to all the showrunners was, this is not about fixing things,” Guggenheim says. “This event is a magic ticket and we can come out of this event with whatever status quo changes, ret cons [retroactive continuity], little or big fixes we wanted to do. I just encouraged them to ask what we want to see coming out of this.” Exactly what that is has been cloaked in secrecy, as has the entire crossover. Shipp did not know his Flash would appear in the “Arrowverse” until someone showed up at his door to scan him for a costume. Garrett says he’s constantly bugged for information.

“Everywhere I go, there are people poking and prodding, trying to get some spoilers,” he says. “Sometimes I give them a spoiler, and the look on their face is so dejected. They’re like, ‘Why’d you do that?’ I’m like, ‘You’ve been following me around Trader Joe’s for the last hour, I thought I’d tell you.’ ”

One spoiler will almost certainly involve the death of a character or characters. In the comic book series, the Flash and Supergirl were killed off. (At the time, sales of “The Flash” were anemic, and DC execs thought the existence of Supergirl made Superman less special.) The build-up to “Crisis” has hinted at the passing of both the Flash and Arrow (Stephen Amell), and with the latter’s series ending two episodes after “Crisis,” that might be a good bet. For this season and beyond, the question becomes, how will the network top a series that pays homage to 80 years of superhero history?

“We shouldn’t try, at least not in the near term,” Guggenheim says. “I really hate comparisons to ‘Endgame,’ because I wish we had their budget, but Marvel rightly didn’t follow up ‘Endgame’ with ‘Endgame 2.’ They followed up with ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ and ‘Black Widow.’ “It took us five years to build up to this, so it’ll take a number of years to build back up to something of this scale and scope.”

[Metallo]

Some new stuff but a few surprises. Leave it to the Arrowverse to get that death of Superman imagery more right than the dceu. What’s it mean though? It’s got to be an alternate earth or an illusion. Maybe Luthor creates it with the book of destiny?

[Metallo]

www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-features/crisis-on-infinite-earths-cw-crossover-behind-scenes-interview-920570/amp/

Inside ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths,’ CW’s Mind-Bending DC Crossover Event

How do you put together a TV series that blends five different superhero shows? Very carefully

ALAN SEPINWALL
DECEMBER 5, 2019 3:49PM EST

By the mid-Eighties, the powers that be at DC Comics felt that their fictional multiverse had become too complicated for its own good. Characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman all existed on parallel Earths, in multiple iterations. The multiverse, DC decided, had to become a single universe, with only one of each hero and villain. The result: Crisis on Infinite Earths, a 12-issue limited series (written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by George Perez) featuring virtually every notable DC character to date, from every world and every era. Crisis and Marvel’s contemporaneous Secret Wars kicked off a tradition of annual line-wide crossovers at both of the major comics companies. Somehow, though, Crisis made the DC universe even harder to follow, and eventually many of its parallel Earths returned.

The TV version of Crisis on Infinite Earths — a five-part crossover uniting all of the CW’s shows based on DC characters, beginning Sunday night with Supergirl — has a simpler mandate behind it.

“We want to do it because it’s cool,” says Marc Guggenheim, who co-created Arrow and helps orchestrate the periodic crossovers between that show, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, et al. He told the creative teams of all the CW shows (including Black Lightning, whose title character will participate even though Crisis isn’t making an episode for it) to consider Crisis “a magic ticket” that would allow them to make whatever changes, big or small, to their continuity, in the same way that Superman and Wonder Woman got new origin stories and altered supporting casts in the wake of the original comic book Crisis.

For years, Guggenheim had assumed that Crisis was the kind of massive story that would be left to DC’s film division. But while working on last year’s TV crossover, Elseworlds, Arrow-verse boss Greg Berlanti was told that it was available for the taking. “That,” Guggenheim says, “was all that we needed to hear.”

Parallel worlds had long been a part of these series. The Flash traveled to “Earth-2” in its second season, while Supergirl (which began life as a CBS show not meant to interact with the CW series) has always taken place on a separate Earth from the one where Oliver Queen and Barry Allen (that’s Green Arrow and Flash, to the uninitiated) have their adventures. The 2017 crossover Crisis on Earth-X leaned into the concept, while also introducing Guggenheim to the idea of “the agnostic crossover.” In previous years, they had attempted to treat each installment as an episode of its respective series; so, the Arrow chapter of 2016’s Invasion! spent as much time celebrating that show’s 100th episode as it did continuing the alien invasion story. Crisis on Earth-X was presented as a miniseries under that name, and major events for individual characters — like Oliver and Barry wedding longtime loves Felicity and Iris — didn’t happen within their own shows.

That’s the approach being taken with Crisis on Infinite Earths, though it creates complications down the line. The Crisis on Earth-X double wedding, for instance, occurred in what was technically an episode of Legends of Tomorrow, so a Flash or Arrow viewer bingeing one of those series months or years later would miss a huge moment for the title character. Without spoiling the Crisis on Infinite Earths premiere (the only installment that I’ve seen), something huge happens to someone who is a regular on a non-Supergirl show. It’s a conundrum Guggenheim has made peace with.

“I’ve always been of the philosophy that the bingeing cart can’t drag the broadcast horse,” he says. “These things are conceived and produced for the CW. I leave it up to Warner Bros. Home Video to figure out how they live on past their broadcast date.” He acknowledges that this philosophy is “not ideal,” citing as an example the fact that only four of the five Crisis series are carried in Britain (Batwoman is the odd show out). “If I controlled Hollywood,” Guggenheim says, “we would cut together all five hours into a single, big movie that would live on in Blu-ray. But I’ve been told repeatedly that that isn’t going to happen.”

Having produced many crossovers since The Flash spun off from Arrow back in 2014, Guggenheim has picked up tricks for making the logistical nightmare work. For starters, these events are made as part of the normal production cycles of their respective shows. So, as Guggenheim puts it, “How do you get [Arrow star] Stephen Amell to be on two sets at once?” (Making matters more complicated is that only Flash and Arrow share the same production facility, so it’s not as easy as just walking over to another part of the backlot.) He and the assistant directors from the various series sit down in Vancouver with color-coded schedules (red for Flash, blue for Supergirl, etc.) that they then cut into strips and try to assemble into something workable.

Over the years, they’ve also learned to take shortcuts where necessary. Flash’s arrival in one of the first crossovers was scheduled to be filmed on a day when actor Grant Gustin wasn’t available. Guggenheim realized the character’s face would really only be visible for a single shot, so they used a double to depict Barry running into the scene, then later used digital effects to place Gustin there.

Black Lightning, meanwhile, not only takes place on another parallel Earth, but films thousands of miles away from the other shows, in Georgia. Guggenheim initially assumed that, at most, Black Lightning star Cress Williams might be able to shoot a brief cameo (which would be his first onscreen interaction with Amell, Gustin, and the others). But when Guggenheim called that show’s executive producer, Salim Akil, he says Akil told him, “‘If Black Lightning’s going to be a part of it, it has to be more than just a cameo. It has to be a meaningful appearance.'” Akil’s team helped clear Williams’ calendar, while playing the same role the producers on all the individual series do when their characters participate in a crossover, Guggenheim says: “Keeping us honest, doing dialogue passes, reviewing cuts, and making sure the version of Black Lightning that we were depicting was the correct version.”

In addition to finally integrating Black Lightning into the Arrow-verse, Guggenheim and company went all-out to bring in memorable stars from projects that predate those he and Berlanti have worked on. This includes actors from shows that were well-known (Tom Welling and Erica Durance from Smallville, Burt Ward from the iconic Sixties Batman) and less so (Ashley Scott reprising her role as the Huntress from the WB’s short-lived Birds of Prey). They even got Legends of Tomorrow‘s Brandon Routh to play Superman for the first time since 2006’s Superman Returns. (Between Routh, Welling, and Tyler Hoechlin — who has played the Man of Steel several times previously on Supergirl and in crossovers — this Crisis will not lack for Supermen.)

“We had to do it,” says Guggenheim. “When we pitched this to the studio and network, we said, ‘This is Crisis on Infinite Earths, not Crisis on CW Earths.’ We felt that to honor the original concept, we had to touch as many strands of the DC tapestry as possible.” Then, he adds, the question became which strands. “That was a very complex matrix. Some of them were pie-in-the-sky kind of ideas, some of them were educated guesses in terms of who we thought might want to participate. Every day was an emotional roller coaster: This person says yes, this person says no. Or, This person says yes, but we can’t afford them. There were certain characters who were approved by DC Entertainment, and then there were some where we were told absolutely not.”
Though Warner technically owns all these characters, it wasn’t as simple as Guggenheim and company pulling every toy they wanted off the shelf. They needed permission from their studio bosses, and from actors like Routh, who had spent the last few years playing the Atom, not Superman.

“There’s television, there’s theatrical, there’s the comic book side, and everyone has to agree,” Guggenheim says. “There’s a lot of email diplomacy that goes on. And then I had to have a creative conversation with Brandon, to see if this was something he was interested in doing. I didn’t have to twist Brandon’s arm. But I presented DC with a wish list of characters and concepts that we wanted to reference, [and] we worked it out. Certainly, this is the broadest we’ve gotten into the greater DC Universe.”

Accounting for all of these challenges, from actor availability to scheduling complications, “the story was always designed to be modular, to create maximum flexibility,” Guggenheim says. There were certain characters who were integral, he explains, while others would just be cameos, if they appeared at all. “We only put our chips down on those squares that we thought would pay off. There’s a scene with a character in hour three that was originally supposed to happen in hour two, and for a variety of reasons, it had to be moved. Fortunately, we had that flexibility.”

Beyond the guest-star logistics — not to mention what Guggenheim calls the “budgetary aneurysm” that comes from moving regulars from show to show (“All the actors get paid a special crossover rate, which is higher than their regular episodic rate”) — there are more fundamental storytelling questions behind such an event. Though not every one of the dozens of characters to appear can get an arc of their own, he says, “it was very important that the five leads each had an emotional story that took you all the way from hour one to hour five.” This means a lot of interaction between Oliver and Barry, as the two heroes who formed the foundation of this multiverse, and also a fair amount between Supergirl and Batwoman, whose chemistry was a revelation to Guggenheim and the others when they briefly interacted during Elseworlds.

Arrow, meanwhile, is in the midst of an abbreviated final season that will run two episodes past the events of Crisis. The timing allowed Guggenheim to use this massive project to help conclude the story of the character who kicked off this corner of DC lore.
“It’s definitely changed my plans for what the series finale would be,” he says. “It’s opened up a possibility that is satisfying in a way I never anticipated. If not for doing Crisis on Infinite Earths, we wouldn’t have been able to do the series finale that we ultimately did.

“It feels appropriate” for Oliver’s adventures to end this way, he adds. “Arrow did start the Arrow-verse, and the Crisis on Infinite Earths event is designed to be the ultimate manifestation of that.”
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