Brandon Routh didn't want to leave the Waverider behind in Legends of Tomorrow, but his time as The Atom came to an end last year when the show's creative team decided to finish his story. Despite that, he still returned in The Flash's "Armageddon" event, and remains interested in being able to reprise the role of Superman after first playing the character in 2006's Superman Returns.
Thanks to The CW, Routh was given the opportunity to play a Kingdom Come-inspired Man of Steel in the Crisis of Infinite Earths event, but he's hoping to do even more with that iteration of Kal-El.
"Given the story is the right story and Superman [is] portrayed in the way that I see Superman. I was absolutely always interested in that," Routh told ComicBook.com when asked if he'd like to reprise the role in a faithful adaptation of Mark Waid and Alex Ross' Kingdom Come storyline. "I have made my own investigations about the possibility of something like that."
"Right now, the truth is that we're flush with Superman stuff, with the success of Superman & Lois - and Tyler [Hoechlin]'s doing an awesome job on that - and then there's a couple scripts and stuff going around for features, I think, in different iterations at Warner Bros."
As Routh rightly points out, there are multiple Superman projects in the works or already on the air. While Supergirl recently ended, a new version of that character will appear in The Flash movie and even though Henry Cavill's Clark Kent has been shelved, Ta-Nehisi Coates and J.J. Abrams are developing a period movie with a Black actor set to play the alien superhero. Then, there's Michael B. Jordan's HBO Max project revolving around Calvin Ellis.
Talking about how The Flash could open the door to more storytelling possibilities, Routh added: "[You] can have multiple Supermen, and it works. That experiment is actively in process and hasn't been tested yet on the feature film side, but I think that's what maybe they're gearing up for. It's hard to say what the next few years will bring, but where I used to say, I didn't think I'd ever play Superman again, having been able to play him again in "Crisis," now I say, the sky's the limit."
While we'd love to see this happen, it's hard to imagine there being room for this particular Superman on the big or small screen (at least not in a solo project). Hopefully, a future DC TV crossover - or even an episode of Legends of Tomorrow - will give Routh the chance to don that iconic shield again.