Months before HBO Max launched, it was announced that Greg Berlanti, the mastermind behind most of The CW’s DC superhero shows, was developing two new shows for the upcoming streaming service — a Green Lantern series and an anthology based on Strange Adventures. It has now been divulged, by Kevin Smith no less, that Strange Adventures was been scrapped.
Warner Bros.’s new owner, Discovery, and president David Zaslav have made it a priority to “fix” the DC side of things. Most of The CW shows have been canceled with only Superman & Lois and Stargirl remaining. (Discovery plans to sell off The CW entirely in the near future.) Zaslav axed the Wonder Twins movies just after its main cast was announced and just weeks before production was supposed to begin. Most infamously, the nearly-complete Batgirl has been killed and WB will use it as a tx write-down, meaning that it can never be released in any way, whether in theaters or on HBO Max.
However, according to Smith, Strange Adventures was quietly scrapped months ago, before the Discovery buyout. It seems the Berlanti project simply could never get out of pre-production.
On his Hollywood Babble-On, Smith said:
“[Dropping Strange Adventures] kind of made sense to me — nobody necessarily knows these characters, and it sounded like an expensive show.”
Smith, who collaborated with Berlanti on Supergirl, co-wrote a script for Strange Adventures with Eric Carrasco. Smith revealed that his script focused on Jimmy Olsen and Bizarro and that he had locked in Nicolas Cage to play Bizarro. (Cage came close to playing Superman in a movie that Smith wrote in the 1990s.)
Strange Adventures would have featured stand-alone stories set in the cosmos of the DC Universe. The character Adam Strange would have recurred, possibly serving as a narrator or host.
Green Lantern was picked up to series back in 2019. Jeremy Irvine has been cast as Alan Scott with Finn Wittrock as Guy Gardner. This may also be an anthology, with each episode featuring a different Green Lantern.
Stay tuned for updates on the state of DC at Warner Bros. Discovery!
