Tyler Hoechlin Reveals Superman Was Almost Killed in Arrowverse’s Major Crossover Event

Tyler Hoechlin played Superman in the Arrowverse series Superman & Lois. And while he was “just” a TV Superman, Hoechling became a fan-favorite and he is now lauded as one of the best on-screen Supermen of all time.

And while the Arrowverse was a major fictional universe, it was initially crafted in such a way that there seemingly wasn’t enough space for characters like Superman or Batman. Plus, there were the copyright issues, of course.

And while Batman did not get a solo outing in the Arrowverse, Superman ultimately did and in a recent talk with Michael Rosenbaum, who played Lex Luthor in Smallville, Hoechlin revealed how the initial idea surrounding Superman was quite different.

The revelation happened in the latest episode of the Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum podcast, where Rosenbaum spoke with the Arrowverse‘s Superman. Here is the full interview:

We definitely suggest that you listen to the whole thing, but if you don’t have the time, we are going to bring you the most important part related to the story of how Superman & Lois came to be.

“I did two episodes, then I did two episodes at the end of that season. And then at one point, I went and met with Greg [Berlanti] again, and he was like, ‘Hey, would you want to come back and do the character on the crossovers?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I had a blast! I love working with Melissa [Benoist,] I love working with Grant…’,” Hoechling starts off the story, which soon takes a very interesting turn.

“The next meeting I had with Greg, [he was like,] ‘Do you want to do the crossovers?’ And I was like, ‘That sounds fun, yeah, I’d love to go work with everybody again. I had a great time.’ So it was three episodes, and he goes, ‘Okay, cool… well, they are telling me it’s the last time I can use you as the character’,” he continues. “And I was like, ‘Okay, great. Dude, it was supposed to be two episodes, this will be seven now, great, awesome.’ He’s like, ‘I might even kill you!’ I’m like, ‘Do what you got to do – great, sounds great!’ That was the conversation going into Elseworlds.”

“So we do Elseworlds, I finish up there, and at that point, it’s been like, I want to say, maybe it’s coming up on a couple [of] years post-Teen Wolf, and I’m like, ‘You know what? I’ve had fun, I’ve done a couple [of] films, I’ve bounced around a little bit’,” Hoechlin said. And that is when it happend.

“I was like, ‘I want to build a community. I want to I want to know the people I go to work with all the time and I want to have a bit of a base, and so I reached out to Greg, I sent him an email and I was like, ‘Hey man, look, my life’s changed a little bit since the last time we sat down. I’m looking for something a little bit more consistent. If you’re open to something, I’d love to come in and talk to you about doing something together.'”

“For me, Superman’s done. Superman’s done, they’ve told him it’s the last time you can use the character on the shows. So he’s like, ‘I’d love that, come in.’ So we sit and we have a meeting and we talk, and at one point he’s like ‘Look, I think I can get Superman to happen but I need to know you’re on board before I start making those calls cuz I’m going to have to convince some people to do it’,” Hoechlin reveals.

“And I was like ‘Okay.’ So we talked about what it would look like and how it would be different, and all this kind of stuff, and I was like ‘All right.’ I was like, ‘Hey, you know what? If it looks like that, I’m down, I’m in,’ and I was walking out the door, and I heard him say to his assistant, he’s like, ‘Get Peter Roth on the phone’,” he says ultimately.

And the rest is, as you know, history. “Then it was like a few months of things turning over, and then eventually, it became this thing of like ‘Yeah, this is real, we want to do this.’ And I was like, ‘All right, great, awesome!’,” Hoechlin concluded the story.

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