This October 16th marked 20 years to the day since Smallville premiered. And while the Superman prequel show hasn’t been on our screens for half of that time, DC fans have never forgotten it. For one, Tom Welling – and Lois Lane co-star Erica Durance – just returned to his role as Clark Kent in 2019’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths”. So, in this age of TV revivals, more from the world of the series seems highly plausible.
And it just so happens that a project is in development. Over the summer, Welling let slip during a Cameo video with a fan (which was subsequently shared online) that he and Michael Rosenbaum – who played Lex Luthor – were working on getting an animated series off the ground. While speaking with IGN to celebrate Smallville’s 20th anniversary, the duo was pressed for more info on this animation.
Welling admitted that he made a mistake in mentioning it to a fan as it’s not something they can really talk about just yet.
“I was being honest with that moment, and I was like literally don’t tell anybody and that person posted it like 30 seconds later,” Welling said. “We can talk about it to an extent. Yeah, but it was my fault that I sent it to this one person…”
Rosenbaum then added that this project is something the both of them are “passionate” about, but they have yet to get the green light from Warner Bros. to make it, so that’s why they can’t say much at this stage.
“It’s okay, you confided in a complete stranger… but you know look it’s something that we’re passionate about, something that we love,” he elaborated. “And we’re going to obviously share it with Warner Bros. when the time is right, and hopefully we’ll be able to work with them .. that’s about all we can say right now.”
The stars went on to confirm that their intention would be to get as many of the original cast of the show back as possible if this animation moved forward. What’s more, they also indicated it would continue on from the season 10 finale, which saw Clark finally suit up as Superman. When pressed on if it would contradict the season 11 comics that covered this same period, Rosenbaum said they were unable to talk about that at this time.
While we wait for more news on the animated series, Smallville‘s first-ever Blu-Ray boxset, a must-have for fans as it features over 28 hours of bonus content, is out today, October 19th.