When FOX's
Gotham began, it seemed obvious where the show was headed; like Smallville, it would follow the lives of heroes and villains familiar to fans of the character in comics, movies and TV, ultimately building to a finale in which Bruce first dons the cape and cowl.
With Syfy's upcoming show
Krypton, however, the ending everyone expects (when Jor-El launches his newborn son to Earth as their planet explodes) is kind of a downer. Reassuringly, according to showrunner Cameron Welsh, that is not the problem some fans are assuming it is.
Here's what he said to
Comicbook.com during a set visit:
We haven't really seen much of this world before and it's just this open book and allows us to tell a story that hasn't been told. There's still plenty more Superman stories to tell, but there's already been a ton of those and there will continue to be. Here's a fresh opportunity to tell this -- to explore a part of the DC universe which is super important, and it's relatively unexplored. It's less about not having Superman but more about it being a prequel is something that we've discussed as being a challenge that we face.
There is some fan demand for more content set in this world following the release of
Man of Steel, as the movie's opening on
Krypton was arguably one of its better moments - but Welsh is aware that some people will still be confused by the concept.
I don't know if it's necessarily the same with Gotham, but there's probably this notion that part of the audience goes, 'Krypton, I guess that's the show about the planet that Superman came from and that planet blows up so I kind of know how that story ends. Do I really need to watch this? I've lots of other things to do'. So the way we've sought to address that challenge is that in story and this is where, when we talk about DC's involvement, not only in giving us access to everything we've got but Geoff Johns himself has been a part of the show and he's a brilliant mind and has some brilliant ideas and very early on we talked about exactly that problem, about the prequel concern. The way we've addressed it in story, we have Adam Strange comes from present day Earth, arrives on Krypton to deliver this warning to Seg to let him know that history as we know it is under threat and somebody is coming to try and change the course of history, change the timeline, and prevent Superman's birth. The show very quickly goes from being about this look into the past into a show that has stakes in the present day.
Krypton premieres on Syfy on the 21st of March. Are you looking forward to it?