'Smallville' at 25: Welling and Rosenbaum Look Back — SkimNews
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- 'Smallville' premiered on The WB, drew 8.4 million viewers for its debut, and ran for 10 seasons — created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar based on DC Comics, with Tom Welling as Clark Kent and Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor.
- Welling and Rosenbaum co-host the "TalkVille" rewatch podcast and recently sat down at Variety's office — staying at Rosenbaum's house the night before — for what they call their most extensive conversation about the show's legacy.
- Christopher Reeve appeared twice on the show as Dr. Virgil Swann; Welling recounted that Reeve refused to leave set during his coverage despite his nurse threatening to call police, telling Welling, "They're always telling me what to do."
- Rosenbaum departed after Season 7 over a contract dispute in which Warner Bros. Television offered a three-year renewal with no pay increase; he returned for the May 11, 2011 series finale, crying in the makeup trailer before filming his final Luthor Mansion scene.
- In the series finale's last shot, Clark Kent finally reveals the Superman suit by ripping open his shirt — a moment production hadn't rehearsed because they couldn't afford the full suit, and Welling had long pushed for a "no flights, no tights" ethos that he had written into his contract.
- Amy Adams appeared in Season 1's "Crave" as a girl who took kryptonite to get thinner, one of many guest stars the show used in its meteor-rock-infected, case-of-the-week early seasons.
Why it matters: 'Smallville' pioneered the superhero-origin format that became standard practice, launching not just two actors' careers but a creative lineage: co-creators Gough and Millar went on to create Netflix's 'Wednesday,' showing the show's character-mythology playbook still drives successful streaming series a decade and a half later.
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