View Full Version : Arrowverse crossover boss: We pitched "Crisis on Infinite Earths," not "Crisis on CW


TMC
12-08-2019, 01:42 AM
...Earths"

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

Marc Guggenheim, who oversees the five-episode Arrowverse crossover premiering Sunday, wanted to go all-out in bringing in DC Comics show stars that predate his and Greg Berlanti's CW shows, including Smallville's Tom Welling and Erica Durance, Batman's Burt Ward and Ashley Scott from The WB's short-lived Birds of Prey. "We had to do it,” Guggenheim tells Rolling Stone. “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." Guggenheim explained which strands of DC Comics past to use. “That was a very complex matrix," he says. "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.” Guggenheim also explained the complicated logistics of making "Crisis on Infinite Earths." “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 (Routh), 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.”

Marc Guggenheim explains the Arrowverse crossover writing process (https://io9.gizmodo.com/crisis-on-infinite-earths-for-infinite-dummies-1840220671): "it was very important to me that these showrunners maintained autonomy and authority over their shows"
Explaining "Crisis on Infinite Earths" for "infinite dummies" (https://www.themarysue.com/interview-elizabeth-tulloch-crisis-on-infinite-earths/)
Elizabeth Tulloch: “I think the fans are really going to love seeing superman as a new dad" (https://ew.com/tv/2019/11/26/crisis-on-infinite-earths-black-lightning-crossover-cress-williams-interview/)
Cress Williams: "Black Lightning gets pulled into the conflict in a very surprising way" (https://ew.com/tv/2019/11/26/crisis-on-infinite-earths-black-lightning-crossover-cress-williams-interview/)

Nicolas Cage was wanted as Superman for CW's "Crisis on Infinite Earths" Arrowverse crossover (https://uproxx.com/tv/crisis-on-infinite-earths-nicolas-cage-superman/)

In October, Arrowverse boss Marc Guggenheim responded (https://twitter.com/mguggenheim/status/1179027594127253504) to a Twitter user who urged him to cast Cage as Superman. "What makes you think we didn't reach out...," Guggenheim responded. In interview with Indiewire (https://www.indiewire.com/2019/12/marc-guggenheim-interview-crisis-on-infinite-earths-arrow-cw-1202194754/), Guggenheim admits he did reach out to Cage. "You know, to be honest with you, because I never want to lie on these things, that was … yeah, I actually did … we did reach out to Nic Cage," he said, adding: "I’ll tell you one thing, we reached out to a lot of people, and there were people who didn’t want to do it. There were people who would only do it for amounts of money that we could not ever afford. And there were other people who really wanted to do it, but couldn’t for scheduling. That was the case with a lot of, I have to say, the movie stars that we reached out to. The thing about movie stars is, they’re all shooting movies. And unless those movies are shooting in Vancouver, we’re kind of out of luck. But I have to say that the sheer number of actors that we did end up getting exceeded my expectation." Guggenheim didn't say how Cage responded to his offer.