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Smallville Shocker: Co-Creator Miles Millar Admits “Chlois” Was Talked About (UPDATED)

Smallville co-creator Miles Millar admits that the notion of Chloe Sullivan becoming Lois Lane had been discussed.

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The latest episode of the Tom Welling-Michael Rosenbaum Smallville podcast TalkVille went out this week, and in it, Michael asks the show’s creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar two questions that fans have speculated about for decades… with, perhaps, a surprise answer in one of those cases.

Let’s start with the headline-grabber: In the Smallville Season 3 episode “Delete,” Chloe uses the name “Lois Lane” as a byline, which fueled the fan fires that “Chlois” – the theory that Allison Mack’s character Chloe Sullivan would somehow or someday change her name to Lois Lane – was a direction the show would ultimately be taking. On the podcast, Michael Rosenbaum asked the producers if this was something that was actually considered.

“We did talk about that, that maybe she is the proto-Lois and that later on, she had to change her identity or something like that, and she becomes Lois Lane,” Miles Millar answered.

“The issue, again, was we wanted to get Lois Lane, and they wouldn’t give her to us,” Al Gough added, before speaking a bit about other conflicts the show had with the movie division of Warner Bros. “Then when she came in in Season 4, there was this huge thing about ‘you can have her for two episodes,’ and then ‘you can have her for three,’ and then ‘you can have her for half the season’ and [WBTV head] Peter Roth, to his credit, was like ‘f— it.  She’s in the show now and she’s just not leaving’,” he continued.

“She became part of the show. It was never questioned again,” Miles said, with Al Gough adding that Lois Lane actress Erica Durance was “fantastic.”

It isn’t known when the possibility of actually doing “Chlois” had been discussed on the show. The notion that Chloe Sullivan was Lois Lane’s cousin was officially confirmed, almost accidentally by Miles Millar at the San Diego Comic-Con panel for Smallville in 2002. Prior to that, the writer of this very article had been told before the pilot even filmed that “Chloe is Lois Lane’s cousin.” In doing an interview for Smallville: The Official Companion Season 7 (also by me), Al Gough reiterated that the show would not end with “Chlois.”

“Chloe, from the inception of the show, was always Lois’s cousin,” he said. “It might have even been in the pilot script. The idea that she was going to turn into Lois was never going to happen.”

UPDATE: We went to Smallville co-creator Alfred Gough for clarification on when “Chloe Sullivan might be Lois Lane” was considered, and we have an answer: “We discussed it when we were developing the show in mid 2000, but even in the series pitch document Lois was her cousin,” he responded to KryptonSite exclusively.

On a similar note, Michael also asked if Ian Somerhalder’s Adam Knight character was supposed to be Bruce Wayne — something that was actually a KryptonSite April Fool only a few months before Somerhalder’s actual casting. It sounds like that one was a for-sure “no.”

“[Bruce Wayne] was a name we were clearly trying to put out there, but we but we could never get Batman. At that point, it was off the table, because [Christopher] Nolan was in literally making Batman Begins at this point,” Gough said. (You can read more about Al and Miles trying to get Bruce Wayne in their 20th anniversary interview here at KryptonSite).

What do you all think? Did the tens of thousands of KryptonSite Forum Chlois posts actually move the needle, or was this just a passing notion, like “wouldn’t it be cool if….?” We may never know, but you can see the Gough/Millar TalkVille episode below, where you can get some great insights into the “Memoria” episode that Miles directed. Enjoy!

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Smallville

Michael Rosenbaum Would Consider A Smallville Movie

Michael Rosenbaum has revealed in a new interview that he would consider reprising the role of Lex Luthor for a Smallville movie.

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Screen Rant today posted an extensive interview with Michael Rosenbaum where he talks about his role as Lex Luthor on Smallville as well as his podcasting empire which includes Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum and TalkVille. There are many fantastic topics covered – you can read the entire interview here – but one thing that might get Smallville fans really pumped is that Michael expressed an interest in reprising the role for a Smallville movie.

“I asked Tom [Welling] the other day, ‘If [Smallville creators] Al [Gough] and Miles [Millar] came to us and said, ‘We got this great idea for a Smallville movie. We want you guys to get in shape for the next two months, and then we’re going to go shoot this movie like a real finale…’ We were both like, ‘Yeah!’ If it was right, I think that would be dope. So many other shows are doing that. I would certainly consider it,” Michael said.

“It would have to something that, again, was grounded, but if Al and Miles did it, and wanted to do a one and half hour movie, I think Tom and I — we’d all consider it,” he continued. “I think we’d have fun going back, but we’d have to really work to get back into those characters in that mindset because we’re a lot older. But if you shaved my head and you put makeup on me, it still works!”

The Screen Rant interview also touched upon the notion of a Smallville animated project — something that Michael and Tom both have been pushing for in recent years. Is there anything new to share?

“All I could share is that it’s a great idea. We have Al and Miles, the creators of Smallville backing us up. When it’s the right time, we’d like to go and do this; pitch to Warner Bros. It has to be the right time, and right now is not the right time. We had the strike, we had a change of executives at DC — one being one of my best friends in the world, James Gunn. When the time’s right, I think it’s something that’s a no brainer, unless they have other ideas. We’d like to do it — the whole cast would like to do it. They would voice their own character from the show, and we have a concept of what the show is,” he confirmed.

You can read the full Screen Rant interview here.

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Crisis on Infinite Earths

Marc Guggenheim Answers Two Smallville-Related Crisis Questions

Arrowverse architect Marc Guggenheim has answered questions about Michael Rosenbaum and Erica Durance’s Smallville roles in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

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Arrowverse architect Marc Guggenheim has been releasing a fantastic Substack newsletter called LegalDispatch in recent months, and with this week’s edition, he answered some Smallville-related questions regarding the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover — specifically, what Michael Rosenbaum‘s Lex would have done if he had shown up, and also, if there were more plans for Erica Durance to appear as Lois beyond her brief scene with Tom Welling.

Being transparent, Marc answered some of those questions! First, regarding what role Michael Rosenbaum’s Lex would play:

Well, here’s the thing. By the time we’d engaged with Michael about appearing in Crisis — thanks in huge part to Stephen Amell’s efforts — we’d already shot the Smallville reunion scene in Hour 2. Nevertheless, I was eager to get Michael’s Lex into the story if I could, so my brain started working on options that could be fit into the episodes that we were still shooting.

I forget the story impetus for them, but I noodled with a version where Michael’s Lex would interact with Jon Cryer’s Lex, which I think would’ve been quite entertaining had it come to pass.

Also, was there any temptation to have Erica Durance’s Lois Lane appear in more than one episode?

There was absolutely a temptation for sure. As with most things, however, we were subject to the limit of a combination of screentime, story requirements, money, shooting schedule, and the actors’ personal schedules.

You can read this week’s LegalDispatch here.

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Smallville

Smallville’s “Toyman” Actor Has Passed Away

Smallville’s “Toyman” actor Chris Gauthier has passed away.

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Chris Gauthier, the actor who played Winslow Schott a.k.a. Toyman on Smallville, has passed away from an “unspecified short illness” at only 48 years old. He appeared in three memorable episodes of Smallville — “Requiem,” “Echo,” and “Prophecy” — during the final two seasons of the series, and well before that, in “Delete,” he played a LuthorCorp technician.

“We can confirm that our dear friend and client, Chris Gauthier, passed away on Friday morning, February 23, at the age of 48,” his management company TriStar Appearances/Event Horizon Talent said in a statement. “His loss is felt not just by his fans but by those of us who were lucky enough to know him more personally. On behalf of his family, we do ask for privacy during this time so that they are able to grieve properly.”

Gauthier had many credits, especially showing up in almost everything that shoots in Vancouver. Those credits included 14 episodes of Once Upon a Time and even a guest shot on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow!

Our condolences go out to Gauthier’s friends, family, and colleagues.

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