Origin stories, Amazons, and Nicolas Cage — there's a lot
of things we'll never see from these DC shows that got the ax.
In the live-action world, DC hasn't had a lot of luck with the Green Lantern. First off,
the film starring Ryan Reynolds, which was meant to kickstart the DCEU, flopped at the box office,
making $219 million from a $200 million budget. Then, the attempt to introduce the hero in the
Arrowverse was largely a start-stop affair, as The CW never fully unleashed John Diggle as the new
Green Lantern. There seemed to be some hope on the horizon, though, as the Arrowverse's mastermind,
Greg Berlanti, began work on a "Green Lantern" TV series for HBO Max in 2019.
Berlanti brought in Seth Grahame-Smith as a writer and showrunner for the series. Of course,
Grahame-Smith is no novice to comic book adaptations, having written the story for
"The Lego Batman Movie." The showrunner got to work on the "Green Lantern" show, and two
leads were cast in the shape of Finn Wittrock as Guy Gardner and Jeremy Irvine as Alan Scott.
The show would have featured other Lanterns from the comics, as well as an entirely new Lantern.
Grahame-Smith completed eight episodes for the first season. In October 2022,
however, a decision was made to pivot in a different direction
and make the show about John Stewart. The showrunner departed the show thereafter.
The launch of HBO Max ushered in a wave of excitement from DC fans. As Warner Bros.'
official streaming service, part of the grand plan was to utilize DC's properties to create
exclusive shows for the platform. In 2021, Variety reported that a "Constantine" series was being
developed by J. J. Abrams and his Bad Robot Productions company. Reportedly, it would have
formed a part of the "Justice League Dark" world that Abrams was set to build out for HBO Max.
There were also rumors floating around social media that "Gangs of London" star
Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù was in line to portray the Hellblazer on the show. However,
the actor told NME that he wasn't ever going to play Constantine,
though stopped short of discussing if he had been cast for another role in the series.
In September 2022, something that no one expected happened:
a sequel to the 2005 "Constantine" film was announced. According to Variety,
Keanu Reeves would return to portray the lead character on the big screen. Simultaneously,
the film's announcement also signaled the end for HBO Max's "Constantine" series.
"A gift, John."
One of the more interesting propositions that was meant to debut on the DC Universe streaming
app was a show called "Metropolis." The drama series was meant to act as a Superman prequel
that would have followed Lex Luthor and Lois Lane in the infamous city as they explored the mythos
of this part of the DC Universe. The brains behind "Metropolis" were John Stephens and Danny Cannon,
who had been the executive producers on the Fox series "Gotham." Thirteen
episodes were ordered in 2018, with plans for the show to air in 2019. However,
Deadline later reported that the show went into redevelopment.
Later that year, though, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the show had been canned,
despite no official announcement from DC about the project's status. That said, it's safe to
say that whichever incarnation of the series was planned back then is all but dead in the
water now. Perhaps some of the ideas for the show might be utilized for future Superman adaptations.
Having debuted in "Omega Men" #3, it took Lobo 36 years to make his live-action debut in the
second season of the SyFy series "Krypton." The Main Man is portrayed by Emmett J. Scanlan,
who embraced the character's wild nature and won over many fans who had doubted his
casting at first. However, Lobo's appearance in "Krypton" was meant to serve as a backdoor
pilot for his own show. Scanlan had signed on to star in his own solo series, which
would have featured "Krypton" executive producer Cameron Welsh being involved in the spinoff too.
Unfortunately, the ratings for Season 2 dropped dramatically, and "Krypton" was
canceled. The "Lobo" TV series ended up being collateral damage in the process as well.
In an interview with CBR, Scanlan reflected on playing Lobo, saying the character was
the perfect merger of Wolverine and The Joker. He added how thinking about the
Main Man brings back fond memories; however, he is disappointed that his run ended so unexpectedly.
"Holy fragaroli! F-f-f-feels like I'm being torn apart! Cool."
"Arrow" birthed a number of other shows, such as "The Flash" and "DC's Legends of
Tomorrow." The Season 8 episode titled "Green Arrow & The Canaries" was meant
to serve as a backdoor pilot for a future spinoff series of the same name on The CW.
The storyline was set in 2040 where Oliver Queen's daughter, Mia, takes up the Green
Arrow mantle and teams up with Laurel Lance and Dinah Drake to take down the rogues.
In January 2021, the plug was pulled on any potential "Green Arrow & The
Canaries" series as The CW decided not to go ahead with it. Soon after,
"Arrow" co-creator Marc Guggenheim revealed on Twitter that the decision
was largely influenced by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Katie Cassidy wasn't too shattered by this turn of events, though, as she explained
to ComicBookMovie.com that the Arrowverse had been more than successful. She said:
"I say this in the most respectful, kind,
realistic way ... We really, really milked that cow."
"I don't think I've taken down so many buildings at once."
There's a reason the "Titans" TV series doesn't have "teen" anywhere in its title. However,
there are many "Teen Titans" fans who would love nothing more than
to see a live-action adaptation of the beloved, youthful team and all
their exuberance. And it almost happened before "Titans" received the green light.
As reported by Variety, TNT had planned to make a "Teen Titans"
show that centered around Dick Grayson and his transition from Robin to Nightwing. In 2016,
former TNT president Kevin Reilly announced the production had been shelved and would not take
flight at all. The Titans lived on, though, and finally received their own show in 2018.
The CW's Arrowverse proved that it wasn't afraid to take risks on relatively newer DC characters,
like Naomi. In fact, there was even a plan to create a "Wonder Girl" show about Yara Flor,
the hero who is half-Amazonian and half-Brazilian rain god. Flor hadn't
even made her debut in DC Comics at the time of this announcement in 2020,
but she had been deemed compelling and interesting enough to get her own show.
Unfortunately, it felt like the brakes were pumped on the series before it had
even gotten out of first gear. Co-showrunner and writer Dailyn Rodriguez broke the news
about the cancellation of "Wonder Girl" on her Twitter account in February 2021.
Yara Flor went on to make her official debut in "Dark Nights:
Death Metal" #7, which was released in January 2021.
For three seasons, Hawk and Dove were an important part of "Titans" as everyone's
favorite crime-fighting couple. After Jason Todd clipped Hawk's wings,
Dove also fluttered away from the series. Actor Alan Ritchson revealed to Entertainment Weekly
that it wasn't his decision to leave the show, but a choice made by the
creative team and producers who needed to cut down the number of cast members.
Discussing his experience on "Titans," Ritchson shared some important details about the characters
of Hawk and Dove, and how they were originally supposed to feature from the inception. He said:
"My initial deal was for two episodes, and I had a separate deal for a Hawk and
Dove spin-off. And when we shot those two episodes, they really enjoyed us as Titans
and invited us to join more episodes in the back half of the first season."
Ritchson added he believed the chances of a spinoff were always unlikely if
the characters were a core part of the Titans team, but he was told that it would
happen since they were so popular on the show. Unfortunately, the spinoff never materialized.
"You didn't wait for me."
"You would have said not tonight."
The superhero Static first captured the public's attention with the release of the "Static Shock"
animated show. Running for 52 episodes, fans fell in love with Virgil Hawkins and how he
balanced the crime-fighting life with the trials and tribulations of being a teenager. The goodwill
of the series resulted in many people wondering when a live-action version of Static would debut.
In 2014, Warner Bros. unveiled a new division called Blue Ribbon Content,
which would be responsible for creating shows and cartoons for the studio. One of the first projects
announced for this venture was a live-action "Static Shock" show created by director, writer,
and producer Reginald Hudlin. A year later, in an interview with Flicks and the City, actor
Tyler James Williams suggested that Jaden Smith had already been cast as the lead for the show.
As interesting as the show sounded, it never seemed to go anywhere. The idea for the show
appears to have morphed into a film, as it was announced in March 2021 that Hudlin and
Michael B. Jordan would be producing a live-action "Static Shock" movie.
The superhero boom in the 2010s inspired networks and studios to get in on a piece of
the action. Considering the success of the '70s "Wonder Woman" TV series starring Lynda Carter,
executives must have been salivating at the thought of trying something similar
in a more lucrative, modern era. In 2011, a pilot for a new potential show was produced,
which starred Adrianne Palicki as the titular hero — but it was never picked up. A year later,
Vulture reported that The CW was eyeing a series that would follow a young Diana
Prince before she became Wonder Woman. The working title for the show was "Amazon."
For a few years, murmurs about the project occasionally popped up, and the show remained
a possibility. However, it all went ice-cold after the confirmation that Gal Gadot would
portray Wonder Woman in the DC Extended Universe. The CW's former CEO Mark Pedowitz revealed at the
2017 TV Critics' Association that the network ceased all plans to take a stab at "Amazon"
after the success of Gadot's Wonder Woman had ended any chance of it ever happening.
"You are stronger than you believe."
August 2022 was a tumultuous time for DC fans,
as the new leadership of Warner Bros. Discovery took the hammer to various
projects. It all started with the shocking cancellation of the "Batgirl" movie, but the
anthology series "Strange Adventures" was also revealed to be off the table around this time.
However, the news of the show's cancellation was actually broken by filmmaker Kevin Smith
on his podcast "Hollywood Babble-On." Smith explained he had been working
on an episode for the show that would have featured Bizarro and Jimmy Olsen. He added
that he was trying to secure Nicolas Cage's services to portray Bizarro,
which would have certainly been a big get for the production. The Hollywood Reporter cited
its own sources that said the project had been silently canned months before the WB-DC purge.
In the world of comics, Madame Xanadu is a well-known and powerful sorcerer in the mystic
part of the DC Universe. It might have taken a while to happen, but the character eventually
made her live-action debut in 2019's "Swamp Thing" TV show, where she was portrayed by actor Jeryl
Prescott. While it would have made sense to spin off the character from that series into
her own solo vehicle, the controversial axing of "Swamp Thing" ended this iteration of Madame X.
However, J. J. Abrams and his production company, Bad Robot, had other ideas,
which would have incorporated Madame X into their vision of DC shows on HBO Max.
Abrams' end goal was to create a "Justice League Dark" franchise for the streamer,
in which multiple characters would have had their own programs. One part of the overall
puzzle was a "Madame X" series that would have been helmed by writer, director, and producer
Angela Robinson. Unfortunately, the turbulence at Warner Bros. Discovery and its upheaval of
DC programming in 2022 claimed yet another victim in the shape of the "Madame X" show.