2021’s Arrowverse Crossover to Be Smaller, Will Focus on Batwoman and Superman

The Arrowverse went all out with this season’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover, so the next season’s crossover will be scaled back a bit. Deadline reports that on The CW’s scheduling call on Thursday (which is replacing the network upfronts), CW CEO and Chariman Mark Pedowitz revealed that the new event will be smaller than the five-part epic and will take place on just two episodes: Batwoman and Superman & Lois, the latter of which will be in its freshman season.

“We’re still working on it,” Pedowitz said of navigating their plans amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “It will be a smaller event than usual, we’re only planning a two-hour event. We are talking about doing Superman and Batwoman together. There’s a lot of characters coming from our other shows.”

As Pedowitz notes, other shows will still cross over but the crossover event will focus on Ruby Rose’s Kate Kane and Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman, the latter of whom is joining Elizabeth Tulloch (Lois Lane) to topline Superman & Lois. That show has been ordered a straight-to-series order and will explore the lives of the iconic DC couple as they attempt to manage all the stress, responsibilities, and unknowns that come with being working parents in a fast-paced world.

EP Mark Guggenheim said following the end of “Crisis” that the next crossover would be scaled back, saying, “Marvel didn’t follow up Endgame with Endgame 2; you’ve got to build to an event of this kind. The one thing we’re all in agreement on… is that we’re not going to go as big next year. In fact, Mark [Pedowitz] and I were talking about ‘returning to the roots’ of our crossovers, and I’ll leave it to people to interpret what that means.”