The Arrowverse’s flagship series may be wrapping up it’s eight-year run this year, but the CW franchise has shown no signs of slowing down. An Arrow spin-off focusing on the future daughter of Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak is already in development, and now a Supergirl offshoot is also in the works. Deadline reports that a Superman & Lois pilot is being developed by Arrowverse overseer Greg Berlanti, The Flash executive producer Todd Helbing, and Warner Bros. TV. The pilot will see Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch reprise their Supergirl roles as the Man of Steel and the Daily Planet’s star reporter, respectively.
The last time we saw Hoechlin and Tulloch was at the end of last year’s “Elseworlds” crossover episode of Supergirl. Clark and Lois informed Clark’s cousin, Kara Danvers, aka Supergirl (Melissa Benoist), that they would be leaving Earth to live in the Kryptonian city of Argo, which had survived the destruction of the planet. They also told Kara that Lois was pregnant, and later in the episode Superman formally proposed to Lois in the Fortress of Solitude. Per Deadline, the Superman & Lois pilot will focus on the couple’s status as “working parents” and the stress and complexity that comes along with that.
Superman & Lois would be the second live-action Superman television series to focus specifically on the relationship between the two characters; Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman starred Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher as the titular couple, and ran for four seasons, one-and-a-half of them good, on ABC from 1993 until 1997. Towards the end of its run, Smallville also heavily featured the relationship between Clark (Tom Welling) and Lois (Erica Durance), with the couple marrying in the series finale. Welling and Durance are both reprising their roles for the upcoming Crisis on Infinite Earths Arrowverse crossover, and a pair of Instagram posts from Tulloch reveal interaction between them:
A pilot for Superman & Lois is incredibly welcome news, as in just a handful of appearances Hoechlin has proven himself to be absolutely perfect as Superman. Seeing more of him in that role will always be welcome. Should it be picked up for series, Superman & Lois would join The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman, Black Lightning, and the aforementioned Arrow spin-off, Canaries, bringing the potential total number of CW Arrowverse series to seven. That’s quite the DC-TV empire Berlanti and Co. have built.
