Published Oct 16, 2026, 8:47 PM EDT
Andy Behbakht has worked as an entertainment journalist since 2010, covering all the latest in Hollywood on both the big and small screens, from staying on top of the biggest breaking news, analyzing movies and television shows in Hollywood, to in-depth interviews with actors and storytellers.
Andy's career includes having worked for publications such as FanSided, KSiteTV, TV Fanatic, It's Just Movies, Heroic Hollywood, TV Overmind, and more. Outside of his career as an established reporter, Andy is the host and producer of The Showrunner Whisperer, The Flash Podcast, the editor-in-chief of Multiverse of Color, and the network director of DC TV Podcasts.
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EXCLUSIVE: A beloved DC property finally gets a massive 2026 update.
While James Gunn's DC Universe is still going forward, DC Studios has also tackled numerous Elseworlds properties. From Robert Pattinson's The Batman franchise to animated projects like My Adventures with Superman, various DC icons are getting explored through different actors and creators.
In an exclusive interview with ScreenRant's Andy Behbakht, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Smallville, Tom Welling was asked if there had been any progress on the animated sequel project that he and Lex Luthor actor Michael Rosenbaum have been developing over the last few years, especially in the midst of the Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount merger. The DC lead stated how "it was an uphill battle before the whole merger thing, and I don't pretend to understand any of that. But I think this is a labor of love for the fans. The idea would be that it would be animated, but all the original cast members would voice their characters, and every cast member we've talked to has been like, 'That would be awesome. Let's do it.'"
He elaborated on how "we have some early renderings from an artist, we have a poster for it already that, obviously, we can't share, but the actual answer is Warner Bros. has to give us the green light. They have to let us use their IP, and that just hasn't happened yet." While the Smallville sequel may not have been greenlit as of yet, Welling stressed, "But we're still fighting. Yeah, we're optimistic about it."
While he couldn't give too many details away, Welling elaborated on how far they got in the story development. As viewers last saw him and Erica Durance was in the Arrowverse franchise during the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover for a special cameo in the 2019 five-part event, he shared, "In my mind, it would pick up relatively quickly after Smallville ended, and we would do our own spin on what happens after that. That's my idea. Whether that's [still] the case, I don't know."
In the current age of TV revivals and sequels, Smallville would be one of the series that could succeed with a continuation, whether it is live-action or animation, especially with the original cast and creators wanting to come back. As DC and Warner Bros. have developed a lot of popular animated shows, the Superman prequel could also tackle Welling's Superman after the original ending in 2011, which got explored in the Season 11 tie-in comic that ran between 2012-2014.
The 10-year-running drama has continued to find a global fanbase, with Smallville having become available on Netflix internationally, allowing a new generation of viewers to follow Clark Kent's origin story. Ideally, once the Skydance merger is finished, as DC Studios will continue to be a major brand for the corporation, there will be a time when Welling and Rosenbaum's sequel series gets to go forward. But for now, the world will have to wait and see if the iconic DC series gets a second era.
Smallville is available through home media release while streaming on Hulu (via Disney+.)
Release Date 2001 - 2011-00-00
Showrunner Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Brian Peterson, Kelly Souders, Todd Slavkin, Darren Swimmer
English (US) ·