'Superman & Lois' Is Ending After Season 4 After All
It was kind of inevitable, wasn’t it?
It was nice to be hopeful for a bit. The CW has announced that the upcoming fourth season for Superman & Lois will indeed be its last.
It was quite the nailbiter to even get the fourth season at the network Warner Bros. ceded majority control to Nexstar. The choice was between it and Gotham Knights to be the last DC series standing where the Arrowverse stood for over a decade, of which Superman & Lois began life as part, and Smallville a decade before that. The renewal did come at great cost. Budget cuts due to the special effects cost would strip the season of three episodes, three staff writers, and eight series regular cast members, left to only be able to carry five, and reduce much of its superheroing, pivoting more toward the family drama. It and All American: Homecoming’s renewals happened in June after producing studio Warner Bros. Television agreed to deliver the new seasons at a greatly reduced license fee so the network could turn a profit under its new lower-cost original programming model. The “keep them going” certainly signified to many that it was possible that it could live for more than the one season. Unfortunately, while it might be the case for fellow survivors Homecoming, its parent All American series, and Walker, it won't here.
“Over the last three seasons, Superman & Lois redefined both the superhero genre and family drama as Tyler, Elizabeth and the entire cast effortlessly portrayed these classic characters with new layers of depth and complexity that had never before been explored in the Superman universe,” said Brad Schwartz, The CW’s current President of Entertainment. “We are grateful for the years of hard work and graceful storytelling from the show’s writers, producers, actors and crew, as well as our terrific partners at Warner Bros. Television and Berlanti Productions. As Superman embarks on his final flight, the team is leaving us with an absolutely epic 10-episode must-watch-every-minute farewell to one of the most legendary CW families ever.”
Executive producers and co-showrunners Todd Helbing and Brent Fletcher added: “While we’re sad to say goodbye to Superman & Lois at the end of Season 4, we’re grateful for the time we’ve had with our amazing cast, crew, VFX teams, editors, musical geniuses, and writers. Since the day this show was first discussed, it was about family. And that’s what was created — on and off screen. We’d like to thank our partners at Berlanti Productions, DC, WB and The CW for their endless support and enthusiasm during this journey…and give a very special thank you to all the fans for tuning in. We’re thrilled about what we have in store in our final season, and can’t wait for everyone to watch as Superman, Lois and all our heroes face off against the biggest threat in the show’s history — Lex Luthor.”
For Greg Berlanti, this marks the end of not only his portfolio of DC series (outside of the Arrowverse he also produced Titans) but CW series as well, where a reboot of The Tomorrow People is the outlier (as far as not being an Arrowverse show) of this class for this period. Before Superman & Lois premiered its third season, DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran said they see the series having “one or two more seasons” left and they’d let it go on for “a little bit”. Guess it’s the one season and done.
Through season three, Superman & Lois starred Tyler Hoechlin as Clark Kent aka Superman, Bitsie Tulloch as Lois Lane, and Alex Garfin and Michael Bishop as their twin sons, Jordan and Jonathan, as well as Dylan Walsh as Gen. Sam Lane, Emmanuelle Chriqui as Lana Lang, Erik Valdez as her ex-husband Kyle Cushing, Inde Navarrette as their daughter Sarah Cortez, Wolé Parks as John Henry Irons, Tayler Buck as his daughter Natalie Lane Irons, Sofia Hasmik as Smallville Gazette journalist Chrissy Beppo, and Chad L. Coleman as Bruno Manheim. Everyone from Walsh-onward will be the ones not returning as series regulars, while Michael Cudlitz is the fifth and final series regular, playing Lex Luthor. The actors not returning as series regulars are hoped to return in some capacity based on availability, though the potential opportunities have hit a very rigid number now that this season’s ten episodes, scheduled to air sometime next year, are the last.
Source: Deadline