DC launched Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985 as a means to simplify the company’s tangled continuity. But over the course of twelve issues, Marv Wolfman and George Perez delivered a story that remains a classic. Now that it’s getting the small-screen treatment as The CW’s annual Arrowverse crossover. It’s going to be a five-part story that includes Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, and Batwoman. But can Crisis‘ epic scale be faithfully recreated on TV?
Arrowverse architect and executive producer Greg Berlanti seems to recognize how high the stakes are. While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Berlanti explained his team’s approach to adapting the event.
“I never feel anything other than a sense of responsibility,” said Berlanti. “Whenever we do an iconic storyline or we do something that reminds us really vividly of one of those books that meant a lot to us, we have a sense of pressure and obligation of ‘Oh wow, we really don’t want to mess this up’ even more so than we usually do. So that fear overrides any kind of other emotion.”
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Given its massive scale, Crisis on Infinite Earths could have easily been earmarked for a film adaptation set in the DC Extended Universe. However, Berlanti theorized that the studio allowed them to make their own version because its “very specific” to their universe.
“We weren’t sure we’d ever be allowed to [do our version of Crisis], or where we’d get to that place,” added Berlanti. “It’s our iteration of it. It’s not necessarily what they’d end up doing in the film space, so we could advocate for it that way, in terms of permission.”
Berlanti also explained how Wolfman and Perez’s original miniseries impacted him at a young age.
“It was a great way to get into all the characters at once because it was like a labyrinth of storytelling,” Berlanti said. “So you were starting to see how all of these characters were interconnected, and then that made you want to go and read the different issues that were happening and get into the different things.”
Are you excited to watch the Arrowverse’s take on Crisis on Infinite Earths? Let us know in the comment section below!
Recommended Reading: Crisis on Infinite Earths
