Kevin Smith Reveals Cancelled Strange Adventures Episode Story Details

Last week during Hollywood Babble-On with co-host Ralph Garman, filmmaker Kevin Smith revealed that the in-development DC anthology series Strange Adventures had been quietly cancelled by HBO Max. The cancellation itself wasn’t a huge surprise; not only has there been very little news about the Greg Berlanti-produced series since its initial announcement in 2019, but there have been a lot of shifts and changes in regard to DC projects for HBO Max in recent days and weeks, but what was surprising is Smith’s revelation about details of the episode he was writing with Supergirl writer Eric Carrasco. Now, Smith is offering even more details about what his episode would have entailed.

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During a recent episode of Fatman Beyond, Smith first explained that he wasn’t aware initially that his comments on Hollywood Babble-On were that big of a revelation, mostly because he hadn’t realized people knew about the show’s existence. As for the episode, Smith revealed a whole adventure that would have seen Jimmy Olsen and Perry White dealing with Bizarro — as well as a bit of dream casting for the roles, though no actual contracts for such casting had been signed.

“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,” he said. “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.

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.