The CW’s Superman & Lois to recast Jonathan Kent
Jordan Elsass is leaving the show for unspecified personal reasons
Aux News Lois
Uh oh: It looks like Barry is using the Speed Force to mess with history again, or at least that would be the case if Superman & Lois hadn’t quietly severed its ties to the larger Arrowverse, because Clark and Lois’ son Jonathan is going to look a little different when the show comes back for its third season. We don’t know if there will be an in-universe explanation for it (is there a Superboy Prime in Superman & Lois and has he ever punched the walls of reality?), but there is a real-world explanation for it.
According to Deadline, Jonathan Kent actor Jordan Elsass will not be returning to the show for season three “due to personal reasons,” and so his character is going to be recast. Apparently, Elsass “did not report back to work by the deadline given to the cast to reconvene in Vancouver” because of a “personal matter,” but there are no details beyond that at this point. In a twist to most versions of the Superman canon, Superman & Lois features its eponymous couple having two teenage sons, Jonathan and Jordan, effectively making them as important to the show as the two title characters.
Recasting Jonathan, then, is a pretty big deal. Recasting in the Arrowverse isn’t totally unheard of, with the inimitable Caity Lotz replacing Jacqueline MacInnes Wood as Sara Lance in Arrow when the writers decided to bring the character back after her apparent death and beef up her storyline. That worked phenomenally well, as did Javicia Leslie’s well-received run as the new Batwoman on Batwoman (though the show was canceled not long after due to The CW’s still-ongoing money woes). Unfortunately for Superman & Lois, it’s technically not part of the Arrowverse, it just happens to feature the same actors for Superman and Lois (and also Arrow character John Diggle showed up once), so there’s no way to tell how this might work out.
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Of course, people who don’t watch the show are already saying it’s because the actor is a homophobe and refuses to play Jon as bi.
Honestly, if they do, in fact, make Jon bi next season, that would be pretty poor writing. Not only would it be his 3rd love interest in 3 seasons, but it would be incredibly poor showing to have Jon and Candice break up after Jon spent the latter half of Season 2 suspended from school, in the doghouse with both Clark and Lois, and close to being arrested and/or expelled for taking the fall for her selling X-Kryptonite.
Per the deadline article he was the only one who refused to get vaccinated among the cast and made a since deleted ig post questioning vaccines. He’s got serious issues and put the cast and crew at risk.
Given the anti-vax stance, his chances of being a homophobe are much higher too.
Nothing wrong with being a homophobe.
What’s wrong with not wanting to get vaccinated?
“3rd love interest in 3 seasons”True Blood producer: You mean in one season, right?
Honestly I’m just sad that show ended before a season where Sookie ended up in a love triangle with Big Foot and the Jersey Devil
What We Do In The Shadows crossover!
Doing my best Letterkenny impression:TO BE FAIR…I don’t know, Louisiana is a hot swampy place. What else is there to do except bang werewolves and witches and vampires and fry cooks.
I think the show was in production before Jon was made bi in the comics, I just assumed that wasn’t even on the writing team’s radar. Just the fact there’s two sons means they aren’t really following the comics at all.
I mean, that’s the least of it. The show has made it blatantly clear they don’t care about comic accuracy. Not saying that is a bad thing, just that it’s the reality.
Do comics even care about comic accuracy anymore? More people watch this one show than probably read all Superman comics combined. Seems kinda pointless to go out of your way to be accurate to the comics. If the story works better with some changes, fine.
Not only would it be his 3rd love interest in 3 seasons
Uh, isn’t he a teen boy? I used to have a different love interest each class period in high school.
Sure.
Did you get suspended, almost arrested and/or expelled, and be heavily in the doghouse with your parents in order to protect any of those love interests?
Did
you get suspended, almost arrested and/or expelled, and be heavily in
the doghouse with your parents in order to protect any of those love
interests?
Only Rao can judge me.
“Honestly, if they do, in fact, make Jon bi next season, that would be pretty poor writing.”
So the act of making a bi character = poor writing?
Gotcha.
“Unfortunately for Superman & Lois, it’s technically not part of the Arrowverse, it just happens to feature the same actors for Superman and Lois”What the shitting fuck? They can just decide it’s not canon whenever it’s convenient?
There was originally going to be a big crossover in Season 1, but COVID put the kibosh on that. Then the WB execs forced them to cut out all the references to Supergirl in Season 1. Once the show became a big hit and the Arrowverse was on its way out, the writers split ties completely by having Sam Lane confirm that Superman is the only superhero on this Earth.That being said, John Diggle re-appeared in the Season 2 finale and will likely be a recurring charter in Season 3, which retroactively confirms that ARGUS and Oliver Queen do exist on that Earth (or did, as Queen is dead on that Earth too).
That is so needlessly confusing when almost every other Arrowverse show is gone or going anyway. Just quietly stop referring to the elements you want to drop. “They’re not on Arrow Earth, but they have several basically identical characters with similar histories” is crazy.
It was put in so that people would stop asking why nobody mentions Kara or where she and Flash are when all this world ending shit is going down.
Will he though? It seems like they wrote the perfect ending for Diggle. He turned his back on the ring, it went off to find someone new and he went home to be with his family.
I take it you haven’t seen the Season 2 finale. Diggle re-appeared and recruited Irons to investigate what happened to the Irons on this Earth.
I don’t think that was the same Diggle.
Then the WB execs forced them to cut out all the references to Supergirl in Season 1.I didn’t know this. They brought back Jenna Dewan’s Lucy in season 2, so did they change their minds?
No, they just cast her as a different version of Lucy. Instead of the put-together military officer from Supergirl, she’s an insecure mess who fell in with a cult.
Maybe they’ll follow through on that Diggle/Green Lantern tease?
No, but apparently Sam Barsanti thinks he can.
Are you not familiar with the CW? They don’t care about ‘canon’.
So, basically they’re like the comics.
Yeah. Because “canon” is just a marketing ploy that studios have learned to weaponize to get nerds all hot and bothered.
It’s canon to its reality. Does that count?
“They can just decide it’s not canon whenever it’s convenient?”
No, not at all! Comics NEVER do this!!!
“Javicia Leslie’s well-received run as the new Batwoman on Batwoman (though the show was canceled not long after due to The CW’s still-ongoing money woes).”More proof that journalism is dead. Everyone hated Batwoman and it was cancelled because the ratings tanked worse than ever. I love how shills think they can rewrite history just because it’s the Internet.
Yeah, Batwoman was the worst Arrowverse show by a country mile. No offense to Leslie, that was all on the writers, I don’t think the best actress in the world could fix those scripts.
I only kept up with Batwoman because of Rachel Skarsten. I loved Alice. She reminded me so much of Callisto on Xena.
I thought Alice killed so many people in the first few shows she was unredeemable-that’s when I stopped watching.
Sir, this is a blog.
Sir, this is a blog.
Sir, this is a slog
Sir, this is a slog
So he is an antivaxxer according to Dradline. Good riddance.Bet you warner discovery cancels the show next week and uses his stupidity as an excuse for a write off.
“Bet you warner discovery cancels the show next week and uses his stupidity as an excuse for a write off.”
Bet you they don’t, since you demonstrably don’t understand what they were doing in the first place.
This show is going to be broomed out after one more season anyway, most likely. Warner Bros. wants to revamp the DCEU to be more competitive with the Marvel superhero juggernaut and that means big theatrical movies. Superman & Lois is just an anchor around their neck (sorry, Dr. Stein) in that respect. Look for the announcement by the end of the year.
Yeah, Zaslav has already said that he considers Superman a brand that WB needs to be pushing and we know that “brand confusion” is something the suits down there fear like the plague.Frankly I was stunned when The Flash (TV) continued after the Flash was in Batman v Superman/Justice League. Figured that’d be toast, just like when Arrow killed Deadshot/their version of the Suicide Squad after Will Smith was cast for the movie Suicide Squad.
It has always amazed me that WB thinks its audience is too damn stupid or confused that superheroes can’t be played by different actors in different media…OMG Im so confused that Carvill isn’t voicing this Xbox game?! Who is this superman, shut it down, shut it down. Im scared.
James Carville? The “Ragin Cajun” voiced Superman? I gotta check that out!
Instead of glasses, he hides his identity with an LSU football hat.
Hell, Marvel still makes tv shows about superheroes not set in the MCU.
Which sucks because, while the family drama bits are boring, the actual Supermanning is REALLY GOOD.
I actually like the family bits because it gives him problems he can’t just punch away. That sets stakes for a character that is, most of the time, an invincible god.
They could be a lot worse that’s for sure.
They could be like the Flash. God that show is unbearable at this point.
I’m just getting to the end of season 3 and I can see it starting to go that way already. First 2 seasons were quality though.
The show doesn’t become as good as before, but I thought Season 5, Season 6A, the Season 7 finale, and Season 8 were pretty good.
I do want to watch it all, I’m planning on skipping through the soap opera parts as they come up…like the last song of the musical episode, easy skip right there.
It’s a really good Superman show that does Superman right.
I liked how they let some Supermanning get done before getting too heavy into the Berlanti teen drama.
I’m curious why Zaslav would think the “blockbuster or bust” strategy would beat the MCU when the MCU itself is investing in a whole bunch of small-screen adventures for its wider cast of heroes to expand the universe and prime the pump for big-screen spectacle. You could argue that the DCEU on the small and big screen was fatally disconnected and inconsistent in tone and casting, but that’s a solvable problem with, I don’t know, maybe a unified creative strategy? And given that a good number of the DCEU’s success stories were for television, it’s feeling like Zaslav is in danger of throwing out the baby and keeping the bathwater.IF that’s actually his strategy. Right now I’m not sure Zaslav actually has a strategy, instead of just a collection of buzzwords and Powerpoint slides. In a year or two DC/WB might have swung right around to the opposite of what they’re saying now.
After mysteriously disappearing for half the season, he’ll return brainwashed into thinking he’s the dead son of a crime boss.
So that’s why they’re bringing in Bruno Manheim.
as did Javicia Leslie’s well-received run as the new Batwoman on Batwoman
The best I heard/saw of Batwoman post-season 1 is that it was just as mediocre as season 1.
I didn’t watch Batwoman, but I was aware of the discourse around it. The article is dangling bait.
The writing was the same quality as before, but Leslie herself was great.
I thought the second season recovered admirably from what should’ve been a series-ending wound, considering how centralized the show was on the Kate Kane character, which made it all the more stunning that the third season fell apart as comprehensively as it did. It was like watching a gymnastics routine where the parallel bars explode into shrapnel halfway through, the athlete still manages a perfect dismount and landing, and then trips and breaks their leg in three places walking off the floor.
Season 2 of Batwoman was not good, but it wasn’t Javicia’s fault which is the best thing I can say about it. She did the best she could with the material she was given. Especially because they DID eventually bring back Kate Kane with a different actress with a perfectly good in universe explanation.
Answer: No. No, it was not.
I’m disappointed because he was honestly my favorite character in this show besides Superman himself. As the non-powered son, he was the more interesting of the two boys, imo, and just played the part really well. Jordan doesn’t really feel like he could be the child of Clark Kent, but Jonathan did.
is there a Superboy Prime in Superman & Lois and has he ever punched the walls of reality?
Actually, yea sort of…?
I’m honestly glad they still do recasts. It has become too much of a trend to drastically change plotlines or stop series and franchise completely instead of just giving the audience some credit that we can suspend our disbelieve and separate actor from character.
“It has become too much of a trend”
How is it a trend?
The end of Better Call Saul did great with it. Even after both that show and Breaking Bad did some serious plot changes over losing actors, when the original Jeff the Cabby couldn’t come back for the last few episodes, they decided “Screw it, we’re not going to let this completely wreck a story we spent years building towards.”
Should’ve recast T’Challa.
Seeing the previews for this new animated film w/ Dwayne Johnson as the voice of Krypto, I was struck by how effective and accessible Superman came off (albeit as a supporting character) and thought that’s the way to market the character today- as an entry level superhero for young kids, with Krasinski staying on to voice him with Pixar-esque plots.
I was so happy that they just skipped the origin (more or less) in the latest Batman film, and I think that’s what they should do with Superman in the future.
It’s SUPERMAN. He’s the most famous superhero in the world. We don’t need his origin! Just have him show up. Supergirl did that, and it was better for it.
They really should just do that with most characters.It’s why the Peacemaker tv show worked so well. It told a tight, focused story where it’s universe just existed and was normal. Didn’t need to show or explain tons of different things to set up X or Y or whatever. Just “Superheroes exist, have for awhile, on we go”.
effectively making them as important to the show as the two title characters.Yeah, this is why I haven’t tuned in. I am interested in a show about Superman, not teenagers.
You’re missing out. It’s the best Superman TV show or movie since the mid-90’s DCAU show.
So it’s actually about Superman for the most part, and not about teenage angst?
It’s about both. And if that’s not your thing, that’s fine, but it is well-written, and that includes the portrayal of Superman.FWIW, I think the teenage angst is fine. For the most part, their angst comes from discovering that their father is Superman and the conflict that knowing and keeping that secret creates – not so much any typical high school drama.
It’s an ensemble show, so it’s equally divvied out. The A-Plot is focused on Clark and Lois, though it’s spread equally between the civilian troubles and Superman troubles, mostly in Season 1 when the Kents are still acclimating to Smallville.
The teens’ troubles mostly come from having to keep Clark’s secret, as well as troubles with being half-Kryptonian. One brother is developing powers, the other doesn’t, and the one that doesn’t gets jealous easy, while the one that does is having a hard time controlling his powers.
That’s tough, sounds like half a shower I’m interested in. Maybe I’ll check it out.
If memory serves this show had production issues at several points last season due to COVID outbreaks. If this guy didnt get his jab and was causing issues, I can see why it might make sense for all parties to part ways. That said, re-casting a major character in the third season may not be a recipe for success. They should have him go off to boarding school off-world and bring in a dog actor to play Krypto instead.
but that’s not what this is about and it’s been reported he chose to step down due to personal issues. I think Warner even went as far as to say that it was personal and not at all work related. Who knows.
Well regardless, recasting a main character 3 seasons in rarely works out well. Give us Krypto!
Here:
Those personal issues are he’s an anti-vaxxer who refuses to get vaccinated. So they told him to get the fuck out, as they should.
sources?
The Deadline article that is linked to here.
Did we read different articles? “Jordan Elsass has notified the Studio that he will not be returning to Superman & Lois for season three due to personal reasons. The role of Jonathan Kent will be recast,”The article never mentions wether or not Elsass is vaccinated or if that was the reason, or that the studio told him to “get the fuck out”. Granted, that could very well be part of the reason but you’re doing a lot of guesswork from a small article where he notifies the studio that he’s not coming back.
Yes, you did read different articles. I Miss Splinter is referring to information from Deadline, which is the source of this article on A.V. Club. “Elsass’ Covid vaccination status also is unknown. He is believed to have used an exception during filming last season, which he seemed to confirm in a quickly-deleted Instagram story he posed in February, in which he questions whether vaccines work. Canada has a policy about not allowing unvaccinated people come into the country, which was recently tested on tennis superstar Novak Djokovic who was denied entry over his refusal to get a Covid vaccine. In Elsass’ case, that was a moot point because he did not attempt to return to the set in Canada, sources said.”
Right, that’s just speculation however as the article clearly states. “Personal reasons” run a gamut and from what I understand Elsass has a history of depression as well, so this could also be related to him trying to get his mental health in order. Speculating on Covid vaccination status is neither here nor there until confirmed that is indeed the reason why he chose to step away or was let go. For the record, he should get vaccinated but nobody knows that’s really why he’s walking away.
An unfortunate death cry for a pretty great series – the actor sounds like an asshole, but I liked the character and don’t know how they’d possibly work around it. At least he got a brief almost superboy prime style moment with his bizzaro version, it was pretty fun to watch
What’s the kind of kryptonite with unpredictable, mutating effects? There is one, right? Anyway that would be my explanation for any change in this show.