Crisis on Infinite Earths became The CW’s biggest Arrowverse crossover of all time, which is why the next one is scaling back. The multi-franchise of DC shows on The CW recently concluded the five-hour event that began a new chapter for the Arrowverse going forward. The event changed the shows forever as well as paving the way for future spin-offs such as Superman and Lois as well as Green Arrow and the Canaries. With The CW characters now existing together on Earth-Prime, the crossover accomplished its massive game-changer. It’s no secret that every crossover event is a major challenge both financially and from a production standpoint.
As the franchise keeps growing, the crossover has more shows to unite year after year. With the exception of Black Lightning, the other shows film in Vancouver, Canada, which makes scheduling that much more complicated. In past interviews with actors and producers, it has become evident how ambitious the crossovers are from the development stage to post-production. As the Arrowverse spent the seasons building to Crisis on Infinite Earths, it became not only a celebration of the current shows but the majority of DC’s live-action properties. Given the massive work that went into this crossover, viewers shouldn’t expect the next event to be as big.
In an interview with TVLine, Arrowverse executive producer Marc Guggenheim spoke about the challenges of doing another Crisis-scale crossover moving forward. While there are already discussions for what the next event will look like, Guggenheim stressed that they’re scaling back. Comparing it to how Marvel Studios approached Avengers: Endgame, Guggenheim feels that a second Crisis-level crossover needs to earned all over again.
Crisis on Infinite Earths was first teased in 2014 in the final scene of The Flash pilot with the infamous newspaper headline from the future. Teasing Barry Allen’s (Grant Gustin) destiny, the iconic DC storyline was slowly built up to in the following seasons. While the next multi-show events may go back to how the earlier crossovers did it, it could be the start of another build-up. Whether they lean heavily into it or not remains to be seen, but there are ways to already set up the next major game-changing event.
“Look, I hate comparisons to [Avengers:] Endgame, because it’s just not fair — we’re working with Endgame‘s catering budget — but Marvel didn’t follow up Endgame with Endgame 2. I think you’ve got to build to an event of this kind. The one thing we’re all in agreement on — cast, crew executives, you name it — is that we’re not going to go as big next year. In fact, Mark [Pedowitz] and I were talking about ‘returning to the roots’ of our crossovers, and I’ll leave it to people to interpret what that means.”
It took about five years for The CW to get to Crisis on Infinite Earths through foreshadowing and Easter eggs that culminated in and after Elseworlds. Even if it doesn’t happen in this fall’s crossover, the showrunners can begin setting something up at any given point. With all the ongoing Arrowverse shows renewed for another season along with Superman and Lois ordered to series, there will still be a lot to look forward to in upcoming Arrowverse crossovers.
Source: TVLine
