Lucifer's Tom Ellis Denies Crisis on Infinite Earths Reports

Lucifer star Tom Ellis, talking with Entertainment Tonight from the set of the Netflix series' fifth and final season, denied reports that emerged last weekend claiming he would appear as Lucifer Morningstar in The CW's "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover event. Despite having supposedly been spotted filming something, the actor claims that he went to Vancouver to visit a friend for her birthday, suggesting that it was little more than wishful thinking that placed him in the room with characters from the interconnected DC Universe of shows that air on The CW. Fans and press had believed the reports, in part because Ellis was provably in town and in part because so many other wild things came out about "Crisis" in the last couple of weeks.

The version of Lucifer played by Ellis comes from DC's Vertigo line -- specifically the Sandman Universe. While they are typically treated as a separate entity, appearances by Sandman in the DC Universe and DC superheroes in Sandman confuse that impression somewhat. Characters from the Sandman Universe most recently appeared in the DCU during the Dark Nights: Metal event.

"Right, OK, see... this is what happens. I go to Vancouver for the weekend to visit my friend for his birthday and now suddenly, I'm in a different show!" Ellis told ET's Katie Krause, adding that an appearance by Lucifer Morningstar in "Crisis on Infinite Earths" was a "hard pass."

"Crisis on Infinite Earths" has loomed over the Arrowverse for years. The series premiere of The Flash featured an allusion to the hero disappearing amid red skies in the year 2024. During the original comics event, red skies were a sign of doom to come to a world during the Crisis. At the end of last season, a couple of things happened: The Monitor (LaMonica Garrett), who had appeared in "Elseworlds," reappeared and revealed that Oliver Queen was destined to die in the Crisis...and the future newspaper at STAR Labs rolled back the expected date of the Crisis from 2024 to 2019.

In the comics, Crisis on Infinite Earths centered on a battle between the combined superheroes (and even some villains) of the DC multiverse and an immortal, cosmic threat known as the Anti-Monitor. Like The Monitor, the Anti-Monitor will be played by LaMonica Garrett in the Arrowverse. As the Anti-Monitor destroys realities, he replaces their positive matter energy with antimatter, growing his own power and sphere of influence. He was eventually stopped by the sacrifices of several heroes, including The Flash and Supergirl, as well as the merging of multiple universes to save reality by becoming a single, unified timeline. Fans have long wondered whether the events of "Crisis on Infinite Earths" might bring Supergirl and even Black Lightning to Earth-1, where the rest of the series take place. The crossover will also feature guest appearances by Tom Welling as Clark Kent, Erica Durance as Lois Lane, John Wesley Shipp as the Flash of Earth-90, Johnathon Schaech as Jonah Hex, Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne, and Ashley Scott as The Huntress.

"Crisis on Infinite Earths" kicks off on Sunday, December 8 on Supergirl, runs through a Monday episode of Batwoman and that Tuesday's episode of The Flash. That will be the midseason cliffhanger, as the shows go on hiatus for the holidays and return on January 14 to finish out the event with the midseason premiere of Arrow and a "special episode" of DC's Legends of Tomorrow, which launches as a midseason series this year and so will not have an episode on the air before the Crisis.