DC Universe Shows Aren’t Required to Crossover With the Arrowverse Despite Crisis on Infinite Earths Inclusion

DC Universe shows aren’t required to crossover with the Arrowverse, despite their inclusion in Crisis on Infinite Earths. That admission comes from Crisis showrunner Marc Guggenheim. He told the Fake Nerd Podcast that the streaming service adaptations were created with “an expectation that they would never have to participate in The CW crossover.” Guggenheim also mentioned the there were some “creative assurances” that they wouldn’t be on the hook to show up in any of The CW’s events.

Now that sounds a little extreme, but the showrunner was completely up-front about it. Guggenheim said, “[This] is an Arrowverse event, it’s done on the Arrowverse shows, and when we were breaking the story, we were always trying to find the right balance between, ‘OK, well, how many non-Arrowverse characters should we bring into this.’”

Coming into this crossover, he previously admitted that Crisis on Earth-X almost killed any future crossovers. The strain to provide stories for almost 15 characters proved to be a heavy lift back then. It would also explain the drive to keep things a bit more concise this time around. After the success of the most recent Crisis, it would be hard to expect The CW and DC to shut the crossover party down now.

“It made sense to just organically play with the toy you already have,” Guggenheim began. “That’s another element of universe building and universe creation: A lot of the ways you create inter-connectivity in your universe is, you always ask yourself, ‘Am I reinventing the wheel or is there a piece on the chessboard that is already in play that I can use?’” He continues, “In the case of Earth-X, Earth-X was something that was already introduced in an animated series that’s in canon in our universe. So why not make use of it in this doppelgänger idea that we had for the crossover?”

“It killed all of us. We were feeling the effects of it literally a year after,” he added. “The network had to really, really convince us to do another crossover because after ‘Crisis on Earth-X,’ we were all pretty burned out. We were like, ‘Can we take a break and then come back for Crisis on Infinite Earths?’ And The CW was like, ‘No, no, don’t worry. It doesn’t have to be all four shows. It can only be three hours.’”

Are you hoping to see more DCU characters in the next crossover? Let us know in the comments!