“Crisis on Infinite Earths” came to a close this week, ending what is by far the most ambitious crossover the Arrowverse has yet attempted. Honestly, it’s probably the most ambitious television crossover of all time. You’d think, then, that the producers had earned some time off to not think about the pressures of achieving these multi-part events for a while. That’s not the case, though, as there have already been talks for what the big crossover will be next season.
EP Marc Guggenheim revealed to TV Line that he has some very rudimentary ideas about where things could go the next time the heroes of Earth-Prime get together. Part of the process of planning out the next crossover, he explained, is looking at what they learned while making the previous one.
“I would say I have ‘ideas for ideas,’ and I’ve sort of pitched to Mark Pedowitz and Greg Berlanti what, if left to my own devices, I would like to see us do. There is a rubric that is semi in place… and both Mark and Greg have signed off on that, and as we go onward, things will get more and more specific. I was emailing Mark just the other day, that we have to all get in a room together to talk about this. We typically do a post mortem about what went right, what went wrong, what did we learn… We always learn something.”
Don’t go in expecting another massive multiversal extravaganza, however, as Guggenheim made clear that the scale of next season’s crossover will be pared back from “Crisis.” In particular, he teased that the premise of it would be “returning to the roots” of where these Arrowverse crossovers began.
“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.”
So, what could Guggenheim mean by this? Well, “Crisis” is the fourth crossover to be made up of at least four shows – following on from 2016’s “Invasion,” 2017’s “Crisis on Earth-X” and 2018’s “Elseworlds.” Or are the real roots of the crossovers those first couple of occasions where it was just Arrow and The Flash? Could we be in for a bunch of a smaller crossovers? There will likely be seven shows running in the 2020/21 season – Flash, Supergirl, Batwoman, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, Superman & Lois and Green Arrow and the Canaries – and it would be pretty ungainly to stretch one crossover across all of those.
Tell us, though, what would you like to see in the crossover following “Crisis on Infinite Earths?” Let us know in the usual place down below.
