Don't Get Your Hopes Up For That Animated 'Smallville' Reboot

There was a time when studios took chances on projects. Something may not have the broadest appeal or feel “weird,” but an executive might see something in the material and decide to take a chance. They put money behind this weird little niche thing, and maybe it fails, but maybe it blows up and has a wider appeal than people may think. Or, in a worst-case scenario, a young person may discover a new, favorite thing they may have never seen. That kind of stuff makes me romantic about the old days of Hollywood, and those days are long gone.

Studios have always been about making money and have employed dubious practices. I’m not arguing in favor of big studios, merely pointing out that they used to take risks. Now, everything is driven by an algorithm to ensure studios spend less and make more than the previous year. Anything less than that is a failure and a slight on their beloved shareholders. Forget art! Forget chance! There are profits to be had, which explains why Warner Brothers has balked at a proposed animated Smallville reboot.

Smallville stars Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum have been developing an animated reboot of their long-running show (TEN SEASONS, JESUS, I WATCHED THAT SHOW FOR ALMOST A THIRD OF MY LIFE MY GOD). They pitched the idea to Warner Brothers, but things have stalled. Welling explained the delay in a conversation with Screen Rant. “We want it to work,” he explained. “The honest answer is we have not been able to get Warner Brothers to give us the thumbs up. We need their permission.” Given what Welling reveals next, I don’t think they’ll get that permission.

The interviewer pressed for more details and the man who was once Clark Kent dug in. “We haven’t even gotten a response,” Welling revealed. “It’s the weirdest thing because it is more of a fan-driven idea. It’s not going to be a blockbuster. It’s not going to be a financial windfall for any of us. We all like each other, we all like working together, and if we could do it, it’d be fun. But Warner Bros. — and I’m not hating on them — they just haven’t gotten back to us. It’s not a priority for them, It’s like a not-returning-phone-calls-thing.” Tom, I think you know why they haven’t gotten back to you.

I am no fan of Warner Brothers’s current leadership. David Zaslav is the Please The Shareholders At All Costs mentality in physical form. So, when Tom says the show won’t be a “financial windfall,” that likely turned Zaslav off faster than a sex scene in Fleabag. Tom probably didn’t say that during the pitch, but Zaslav can smell a lack of profits! It’s his seventh, eighth, and ninth sense. The man is not going to get out of bed just because a group of creative people are passionate about something and *shudders* like each other.

I’m not saying an animated Smallville reboot is the peak of weird creativity. Passing on this is not like passing on a David Lynch movie. It just shows how studios are even less willing to try something these days, even if it falls in the coveted Pre-Existing IP realm. Smallville already had a sequel in comic book form that was quite popular. There would likely be interest in an animated version. But, since it won’t blow the doors down money-wise, Zaslav and others like him won’t care.