Game Of Thrones Creator George R.R. Martin Reached Out to Kevin Smith About His Strange Adventures Story

By Russ Burlingame

Kevin Smith is in full-on hype mode for Clerks III, which begins releasing in theaters next month, but recently, he took some time out to pour a glass for Strange Adventures, the aborted DC anthology series, which was set to air on HBO Max from Arrowverse producer Greg Berlanti. Smith was to have an episode on the series, which would have featured the character of Bizarro, with supporting characters Jimmy Olsen and Perry White. He broke it down on a previous episode of Fatman Beyond, and in this week's episode, he talked about a cool, recent conversation he had about the script.

Smith explained that Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin took some time out from answering questions about House of the Dragon and shot Smith a text, lamenting the loss of the story. Smith was at a bit of a loss for words.

"Recently, I bought a movie theater, so we're in the process of closing. In mid-September it should become fully ours....Once that story got out into the world, a fellow movie theater owner reached out to me. A young upstart fantasy novelist by the name of GRRM, who I met years ago at the Neuchâtel Film Festival in Switzerland," Smith began his story. After a short explanation of how the two came to be friendly, he got to the more recent details.

"He reached out to me out of nowhere. I hadn't heard from him in years, but because I bought a movie theater, he was like, 'Well, congratulations, fellow theater owner.' But he was chiefly reaching out because of [Strange Adventures]. We were talking about it here on the show, and then a couple of websites picked up my description of what my story with Bizarro with Perry White and Jimmy Olsen was going to be. He literally f---ing texted me for the first time in five or six years to be like, 'That sounded like a really cool story. I'm sorry to hear it's not going to happen.'"

You can see the episode below.

Smith joked that Martin "could write ten better Bizarro stories," but praised the elder statesman of geekdom for not losing his passion.

"I talked about a little bit on Babble-On I won't do it all again here you can go watch it over at Babble-On if you're that interested but I was going to do an episode that featured Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, Bizarro," Smith previously explained of the episode, which he co-wrote with Supergirl's Eric Carrasco.. "As we've talked about, Nick Cage was going to be our guy. We made no deal so I'm not saying he signed on the dotted line, that's who we were going for. Our Perry White I was going for John Goodman."

He continued, "Jimmy and Perry first got to Bizarro World, Bizarro presented as Nick Cage via George Reeves Superman so it was essentially Nick Cage in the old George Reeves costume and you know he was very you know aw shucks and give the performance very you know Chris Reeve slash early comics version of the character and then slowly throughout the show you know as you would see this kind of perfect idealized world starts crumble and people weren't as happy as they were presenting working for their version of the daily planet and you know this guy was like an angry child god who would just kill at will and there's a slow resistance that builds up against their Superman and they start putting backwards S's up everywhere and like that so eventually you know he totally decays like over the course of the show as he stresses he starts turning into what we know as Bizarro and then he kills somebody and takes their blood and paints the S backwards across his chest because he's being the monster and then he speaks like you know normally throughout all that until he starts breaking down and then he's just like 'me angry.'"

He went on to explain that the episode would have seen Bizarro go after Jimmy and Perry in the "real" world after Bizarro World was seemingly destroyed, though their battle would lead to Bizarro ultimately getting to be the real hero he longed to be when he saved a child in danger. He also explained that he was told that he couldn't utilize Superman and Lois and Clark, though they were told they could try to sneak them in at the end. He then teased that the episode would have had a post-credits moment that would see Superman — or at least his boots — catch up with Bizarro.

"Both of these original DC properties we'll be creating for HBO Max will be unlike anything seen on television," Berlanti said of Strange Adventures and the Green Lantern show when the two were announced. "An anthology series of cautionary tales set in a world where superpowers exist, and, in what promises to be our biggest DC show ever made, we will be going to space with a Green Lantern television series, but I can't reveal any more about that just yet."

Berlanti's Green Lantern project is reportedly still in the works, at least for now.

Per the official description at the time the series was announced, Strange Adventures would have been a DC Super Hero anthology series from Berlanti that would have featured characters across the DC canon in one-hour episodes exploring close-ended morality tales about the intersecting lives of mortals and superhumans. Berlanti, Sarah Schechter (Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Titans, Doom Patrol), and showrunner/writer John Stephens (Gotham, Gossip Girl) serve as executive producers. Charlie Huston (Powers, Gotham) is a co-executive producer, Brigitte Hales (Once Upon a Time) is a producer, and Selwyn Seyfu Hinds (Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child, The Twilight Zone) is a consulting producer.

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