Congratulations to everyone at Supergirl. CBS just ordered seven more episodes bringing the season total up to 20, thus qualifying as a full season. Up, up and…
Wait, what’s this now about the ratings? Funny thing. Supergirl took off like a true and proper superhero soaring through the air with the ratings for the pilot, the most-watched premiere of the fall. Ever since then it’s been more like, to steal a phrase from Jessica Jones , controlled falling, with fewer and fewer watching live, opting instead for DVR (or simply abandoning the show altogether).
So what? The same thing happened to Gotham and Agents of SHIELD. These shows always over-sample with their premieres before falling and finding their equilibrium, and the networks have adjusted to the death of the overnight rating and dawn of the live+7 era. Supergirl‘s obviously doing well enough to have earned a full season.
Yes, but this isn’t Fox or ABC, and it sure as hell isn’t The CW. This is CBS. They have different standards, and they’ve invested too much in Supergirl to simply abandon it. That’s why they gave it the full season, but there’s no guarantee it will get a second season, especially now that the show’s biggest champion at the network, Entertainment Chairman Nina Tassler, is on her way out.
Nina Tassler, without whom Supergirl might not have made it past the pitch stage
Enter Bleeding Cool. They hear that with Supergirl looking like it could use a bit of a boost CBS is opening up to the possibility of engineering a May sweeps cross-over event with The Flash. Both shows are run by the same guy (Greg Berlanti). They both come from Warner Bros. Television, and while they air on different networks it’s not exactly like they’re rival networks. CBS co-owns The CW with Warner Bros. There’s seemingly enough corporate synergy to make it happen, but whenever the question of a crossover has been presented to Berlanti or anyone at The CW or CBS the answer always seemed to be, “Not right now.” Arrow/Flash/Legends of Tomorrow could do their own thing, and Supergirl could do her’s. Now, Bleeding Cool argues, “We’ve heard this morning that it may be a requirement to do a crossover if [Supergirl] gets [a full-season order].”
Maybe. Maybe not. Bleeding Cool is the same source that once said WB was planning a series of low-to-mid budget superhero movies to launch DC’s lesser characters in lower stakes films released in the fall and spring around the bigger budget Batman/Superman/Justice League movies in the summer. That’s not happening. This may not either.
I have a healthy skepticism about anything Bleeding Cool says, but I repeat all of this here because I know that a lot of my readers watch (or have watched) both Supergirl and The Flash. Ignoring the “it’s just a rumor” part of this – what do you think? Could a cross-over event work? My sense is that Supergirl needs this more than The Flash. With so much of The Flash‘s second season devoted to setting up Legends of Tomorrow, which is finally being launched via Flash/Arrow‘s forthcoming two-night event, it would be nice to see Flash getting back to lifting its own weight instead of the weight of other shows. Barry and Oliver can meet up from time to time. That’s cool. Barry and Kara, though? I don’t like it because I don’t like the idea of a Superman having existed all this time in the Arrow-verse, which is exactly what would be suggested if Barry and Kara ever crossed paths.
Whoa there, tiger. BC threw some water on that fire in a follow-up post, “I’m hearing from another well connected source that the show is incredibly expensive and they’re not sure if they’ll go with a second season, and instead replace it with a totally different show for it.”
Um. I should add a Constantine-themed joke right here, right? Well, he’s British. So…
Constantine’s not coming back after all? Bollocks.
Nailed it.
Boo-yah!
Lastly, Joblo says the 2020 Cyborg movie might be retooled into a Teen Titans movie, even though TNT is already working on a live-action Teen Titans TV series. The reason for the change is reportedly that DC wants to tweak the diversity of its DC lineup, and why merely make a solo movie about an African-American hero when you can pair him with a couple of other girls and guys, most of whom won’t necessarily need to be white. Heck, Beast Boy has green skin!
Before this, I deeply doubted that the Cyborg movie was ever going to happen, and we have heard so little about the TNT version of Titans since it was first announced that I’ve long since assumed it was dead at this point. I’m frankly pushing it to really get too invested in any of this because 2020 just seems so far away. Mostly this story just amuses me because I instantly picture the Teen Titans GO! versions of these characters in their own movie. A full movie version of this?
Actually, I’d watch that.
