Ill-Conceived DC Flop Almost Stopped Smallville From Being Made
Superman hasn't always had the greatest luck on-screen, with most of his movies after 1980 having been hit with mixed reviews.
He's had success on the smaller screen, with hits like CW's Smallville, but Joel Schumacher's atrocious second Batman movie almost ruined that.
Smallville starred Tom Welling as a teenaged Clark Kent, one who was in the process of realizing his full potential. It featured alternate versions of DC's most popular characters, reimagining them as characters in a teenage drama. Over its 10 seasons from 2001-2011, it won three Emmys and holds a 78% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Schumacher's Batman & Robin, however, goes down as one of the worst superhero movies ever made.
The 1997 movie holds the record for most Razzie nominations – a faux award that roasts the worst films of the year. It put a black mark on the careers of Alicia Silverstone and George Clooney, stalled the character for eight years, and left the film's writer apologizing for its creation. It also almost kept Smallville from ever being made.
Smallville's showrunners Miles Millar and Alfred Gough recently talked to The Hollywood Reporter about the difficulties in creating a superhero show after the failure of Batman & Robin.
They called 2000 – when they began trying to get the show off the ground – the lowest point for superhero projects. The last movie DC had done was Batman & Robin, and the last show was Lois & Clark. Lois & Clark was a cult classic that was well-rated but relatively unknown, and as the name suggests, it focused less on Superman than the average fan would prefer.
The duo said they couldn't pitch the script to anyone; nobody wanted to do superhero content. (What a different time that was.) They eventually were able to pitch to The WB Television Network (predecessor to The CW Television Network). It was apparently a surprise to both parties when The WB agreed to their pitch.
Gough said their success was likely due to the lack of content about Superman's youth. He said that Clark Kent's parentage was an important part of his mythos, but viewers had never been able to see that development on-screen.
Millar said that gave them a lot of creative freedom, as they were taking on a brand-new story of the character. Because there is so much superhero content now, he believes current filmmakers aren't granted that same freedom.
Despite the genre being stalled after Batman & Robin, superhero movies and shows were eventually able to rebound – partially due to the success of the shows like Smallville.