Marc Guggenheim To Make Directorial Debut With Legends of Tomorrow Episode

Arrow and DC's Legends of Tomorrow co-creator Marc Guggenheim will take the director's chair for the first time during an upcoming episode of Legends of Tomorrow, the veteran writer and producer revealed on social media today. The episode he will direct has not yet been shared. Guggenheim has written movies, TV, and comics for years, but has no director credits to his name, according to his IMDb page. Directing film and TV are much different animals, though, and many of the duties that fall to directors in movies -- establishing a tone and look for the piece, for instance -- are actually the purview of executive producers like Guggenheim on TV, since they stick around week in and week out while directors come and go.

Guggenheim served as the showrunner for both Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow at their launch, but has since handed the reins of both shows over to writers he worked with while he was running the shows. His current Arrowverse title is consulting producer on those series, but he has also served as the showrunner on The CW's crossover events since "Invasion!," helping to give the stories which run across several diferent shows a consistent tone and feel.

In an Instagram post, Guggenheim referred to directing as "A new adventure," adding, "I'm grateful to the army of people who have encouraged me to take this leap and are supporting me while I'm in midair."

The Legends are not, for the most part, taking part in the events of the Guggenheim-run "Crisis on Infinite Earths," with only Ray, Sara, and an alternate Earth's Mick Rory fighting alongside Superman, The Flash, and the rest of the heroes of the multiverse. The premiere will pick up where last season left off, with reality rewritten after the team managed to prevent the deaths of Zari's family. As a result, her brother Behrad (played by Shayan Sobhian) is on the team instead of Zari, since he never died and passed on his totem to his sister, so she never became a Legend. Instead, it seems she is living a glamorous celebrity lifestyle, which might be part of why the Legends are suddenly famous.

DC's Legends of Tomorrow returns from its long hiatus on January 14 for a special episode to close out the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover event. The following week, Legends's season premiere airs on January 21 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.