Smallville star Tom Welling is working with former co-stars Michael Rosenbaum and Erica Durance to bring Smalliville back as an animated series.

Tom Welling has given some promising updates on the planned Smallville animated TV revival. Smallville, which ended in 2011, still holds the record for the longest-running DC Comics TV show. The series followed a young Clark Kent as he discovered his powers and learned to cope with him in anticipation of him finally donning the cape and shield.

Warner Bros. has not yet formally announced the animated series, but Welling recently shared some new exciting updates at Fan Expo Vancouver.

Welling went into some detail about what the Smallville revival would explore, along with his hopes of reuniting some former cast members. He also briefly addressed the fact that former Smallville co-star Allison Mack is still serving prison time for her involvement in Nxivm, a group described as a “cult,” after pleading guilty to charges of racketeering and conspiracy in June 2021. Read Welling’s full comments below:

Welling: We’re working on animated series that picks up right after our Smallville [Season 10] and, again, telling our own story and our vision is that we get Erica… It might be tough to get Allison … But even Sam Jones III [who played Pete Ross] and Lionel Luthor is going to be a big part of that. John Glover wants to do it, we’ve already been into this. We’ve already gotten animation, we just don’t have the stories yet because Al and Miles are busy doing Tim Burton-like movies. As soon as they are done with that, we’re going to do this. I want to be Clark’s voice, I want Erica to be Lois’ voice, that’s going to be the fun of it. I think there’s a story that Al and Miles are going to tell that’s individual and new and call it a Multiverse thing. But let’s see where it goes, and it’ll be fun so yeah.”

It’s was reported in 2018 that fellow co-star Kristin Kreuk is also interested in the project. That’s how long this project has been on the back burner, and it may well have been sparked years prior to that.

It’s unlikely that Mack would ever be considered as a returning acotr for the Smallville franchise, regardless of what form it might take. Mack, who portrayed Chloe Sullivan for 10 years, will almost certainly be replaced by a voice actor who sounds like her. There was a Smallville season 11 tie-in comic penned by Bryan Q. Miller, who worked on the series, and there’s some possibility that elements of the comic will factor into the revival show.

HBO Max seems like the most likely candidate for streaming the series, should it reach production, where it would join DC shows like Young Justice and Harley Quinn. The CW is likely not in the running for this, first because they really don’t do animated shows that much, and also being currently up for sale.

It’s a long hard road between pre-production and release, and so far Welling’s idea is just that: an idea. It can’t even go into pre-production until there’s some kind of distribution plan for it, and much of the money for the series would come from the distributor, or Warner Bros., or both.

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