Fans were thrown for a loop when Tyler Hoechlin was cast as Superman in season 2 of Supergirl, especially given the rumours of DC characters from the feature films being off limits to the television divisions. Despite the rumoured friction, executive producer Andrew Kreisberg revealed that it really didn't take much to sell their vision to Warner Bros. and DC.
“I think people would love to hear that we had to promise our children and there was a blood rite, and a goat was sacrificed,” Kreisberg told IGN, “but the truth is we’re all partners, and we all want what’s best and so it really wasn’t a tough sell. We had our plan, and we presented it to Warner Bros. and to DC and they were totally supportive of it. It was more once they actually said yes, it was like, ‘Oh crap, now we have to do Superman!’ We have to find the right actor, and we have to write the best scripts. We have to make the suit. That was the stuff that gave us [headaches]. Actually pulling it off. But behind the scenes, everybody at Warner Bros. and DC and the CW, we're all growing in the same direction.”
Kreisberg and the creative team wanted the Man of Steel's introduction to feel more natural and less obligatory; according to them, they wanted Supergirl to seem capable of saving the world without Superman's help. “I think we’ve spent a year establishing her, and the year ended triumphantly with her saving the world, so there wasn’t any sort of doubt that Supergirl couldn’t do it on her own,” Kreisberg explained. “It felt like you weren’t bringing him in to save the day. It was bringing him in the same way that the crossovers with Flash and the Arrow … it becomes about a partnership.”
As for Superman's future on the CW, “That’s going to be up to Warner Bros., DC and the audience, quite frankly,” Kreisberg offered. “If it turns out as well as we hope, and the audience responds, then we’ll see what happens down the road.”