Crisis on Infinite Earths: Arrowverse Event Almost Went to Theaters

The start of the COVID-19 pandemic ruined plans for a Fathom Events tie-in with Crisis in 2020.

By Russ Burlingame

Crisis on Infinite Earths showrunner Marc Guggenheim revealed via his Substack newsletter "The Legal Dispatch" that the five-part Arrowverse event almost got a theatrical release. The plan was to celebrate the Arrowverse with Fathom Events, with deleted scenes from the series and other one-off goodies airing in between episodes, as well as appearances by cast members and other giveaways in some parts of the country. Unfortunately, it never happened. Why? Well, the second half of Crisis on Infinite Earths aired in January 2020, and the theatrical event would have happened a few months after, just before that season's Arrowverse shows came to DVD.

So -- yeah. Planned as a major social event for April 2020, the Crisis on Infinite Earths theatrical screenings were cancelled before they were ever officially announced. That might seem hard to believe, but remember that Fathom Events typically does one or two-day engagements for their theatrical events, and that they often don't get announced until it's time to start selling tickets.

Here's how Guggenheim explained it:

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I don't believe this is publicly known (again, statute of limitations) but we had been working with Warner Bros. to release all five hours of Crisis in movie theaters across the country. The event — arranged through Fathom Events — was going to include special surprises like cast appearances and giveaways and we'd also cut together a few bonuses that would have been screened in-between episodes and, yes, they would have included the deleted scenes — with all the VFX completed, the sound mixed, and the picture color-timed — that I'd mentioned.

At this point, you're probably wondering why this event didn't go forward. Well, the answer is that it was scheduled for April 2020.

Covid ruins everything.

Above, he's referring to the "statute of limitations" on getting in trouble for spilling Arrowverse secrets. Earlier in the entry, he had talked briefly about two deleted scenes from the Crisis on Infinite Earths screenplay -- one in which Pariah (Tom Cavanagh) witnessed the destruction of Argo City, and another in which Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) transformed into The Spectre. Guggenheim said that while it doesn't necessarily seem immediately likely, he would put the possibility of those scenes coming out someday as higher than zero.

Crisis on Infinite Earths, based on the comic book story by Marv Wolfman and George Perez, took place over five episodes -- one each of Supergirl, Batwoman, The Flash, Arrow, and DC's Legends of Tomorrow -- in late 2019 and early 2020. The series also featured an appearance by Cress Williams as Black Lightning, and producers on that show included a Crisis on Infinite Earths kinda-crossover episode, where the world was destroyed by antimatter and Black Lightning was saved. Other characters who appeared in Crisis included Burt Ward as Dick Grayson, Robert Wuhl as Alexander Knox, Derek Mears as Swamp Thing, Brandon Routh as Superman, Tom Welling as Clark Kent, Kevin Conroy as Batman, and the casts of Birds of Prey, Titans, and Doom Patrol.

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