Could Nathan Fillion’s Superman: Legacy Movie Role Further Delay The Rookie Season 6?
Could Nathan Fillion‘s role as a big-screen Green Lantern could put another red light in front of The Rookie Season 6?
Already, The Rookie had been pushed to a “midseason” premiere as opposed to its usual fall bow, in acknowledgment of the Writers Strike that began on May 2 and is showing no signs of ending soon.
Now, in a second wave of castings for James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy movie (reported by Vanity Fair), Rookie headliner Fillion has been tapped to fill the role of the Green Lantern named Guy Gardner.
Additionally, Edi Gathegi (For All Mankind) and Isabela Merced will respectively fill the Superman: Legacy roles of Mister Terrific and Hawkgirl. As previously announced, the first film of Gunn’s “new DCU” will star David Corenswet (The Politician) as Kal-El/Clark Kent and Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) as Lois Lane.
Superman: Legacy is due to begin filming in January 2024. The Rookie, meanwhile, best case scenario — in a world where the WGA and AMPTP resume talks soon and somehow reach a deal by the end of July — might start up production on Season 6 in, say, early October. But again, that is a highly optimistic timetable, seeing as there have been zero negotiations on the WGA/AMPTP front since that strike began.
And that’s not factoring in any delays that might be result from a possible SAG-AFTRA strike, which could last beyond any WGA/AMPTP resolution.
Maybe The Rookie, once the cameras get rolling, can bang out out a handful of episodes before Fillion is needed to suit up as Green Lantern? And either pre-tape some scenes (to be scattered across his absence from set) or write Officer John Nolan out for an episode or two.
Fillion of course sneaked off to film a medium-small role in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 during The Rookie‘s fourth season, with no apparent on-screen consequence. (He also had a blink-and-you-missed-it role in Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, which filmed during The Rookie Season 2.) The stickier wicket here, though, is that The Rookie might just be ramping up production on Season 6 when Superman: Legacy begins filming.
There are a lot of variables at play at this early date, but TVLine reached out to ABC for comment nonetheless. UPDATE: The Rookie showrunner Alexi Hawley, meanwhile, has responded to our tweet with a simple, “Nope!”
Guy Gardner?
Guy Gardner?!?
Fillion doesn’t strike me as a Guy Gardner type. Hal Jordan? Sure. But not Guy.
He’s definitely more of a Hal Jordan type, but I think he can handle that Guy Gardner style of snark well. It’s a lot better than casting him as Alan Scott or Kyle Rayner, neither of which would really have worked.
Yeah, I think he’d be better suited as Hal Jordan, but I think he could be a really good Guy Gardner. I just hope they give him a (preferably bad) wig or dye his hair so we don’t get yet more ginger erasure!
Well that’s the thing if you watch the dc universe animated films in he is Hal Jordan as he is the voice of Hal Jordan in dc animated movies
Gunn said we are not getting a Smallville origin story in the movie, it will be a Superman movie packed full of surprises and we jump straight into a world where clark has been superman for years
Good. It was the right call to do that with Spider-Man. There are plenty of places to see the Superman origin story without needing to waste time on it here. I am okay with Characters being older and not needing to start the story over each time.
SO much is unknown. We don’t know how big the part is. And given that he was able to tape Guardians of Galaxy and still do The Rookie under normal circumstances. I am sure whenever The Rookie begins shooting. They will take in consideration. As much as Nolan is a center piece to the show. They do put on emphasis to others at times, so we might get some lesser presence or they will be able to figure out how to do both.
This. I feel like this might be about the size of his Guardians role, as a set up for larger roles in ensemble pics to be filmed at a later date. Because the Rookie probably has 3ish years left in it.
Can’t see why it would impact The Rookie’s shooting schedule.
It’s a Superman movie, not Justice League, so he shouldn’t be on set for that a long amount of time. Plus all the true DC fans will once again be upset if he is in that much because they’re shoehorning in established characters in a solo movie so early in the new gunnverse….
I doubt he has the kind of role that would take more than a handful of days to shoot. These days stunt people and CGI doubles handle most of the action and actors can often record all their lines in a batch, in a green screen. Gal Gadot has been in three films this year where she was never with anyone else on set, physically.
Love Nathan, but if John is absent for a few eps…. That’s fine. The cast is aces and can carry the show JUST FINE!
I feel like we’ve reached a point with the show where it can continue on without Fillion’s Nolan being a huge presence, sort of like with Ellen Pompeo and Meredith Grey in the last few seasons of Grey’s Anatomy.
Don’t most shows shoot three weeks on and one week off? He could certainly film scenes during breaks in the series. SUPERMAN is certainly going to be in production for months.
Then you have reshoots too which are fairly common. That’s usually when you have a cut made and there’s a few things you want to change to get the movie just right. It doesn’t mean you have a bad movie but rather you may want to add more to a particular scene for audiences after the fact. This is usually factored into any movies established production budget.
I doubt he will have a huge amount of screen time in the movie. So I don’t see it taking long for him to film.
He’s voiced Hal Jordan multiple times in the DC animated movies over the past 12 years.
The Rookie has long since moved past the original premise, so it wouldn’t be difficult to write him out for a bit if needed. Especially when we have Lopez and Harper being all kinds of amazing.
Looks like James Gunn is continuing his trend of casting his wife and mates in everything, it was quite distracting in GotG3.
You in 1948: “Why does John Huston keep putting Humphrey Bogart in his movies? Aren’t there any other stars in town? Enough already.”
Clearly, Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, Mr. Terrific, Metamorpho and probably a handful of others will be the movie’s version of The Authority. I presume they’ll be there to contrast Superman’s purer moral code in terms of being a superhero in the new DC universe. Unfortunately, given Gunn’s fairly toxic view of heroes shown in SUICIDE SQUAD and PEACEMAKER, I have no faith in his ability or desire to adhere to the mostly purity of purpose of most of these heroes (Gardner, always a jerk, excepted), nor do I expect there to be much subtlety in the storyline. But what I expect is that Fillion’s participation won’t be much larger than his appearances in GUARDIANS or SUICIDE SQUAD, and was never likely to disrupt his main paycheck on THE ROOKIE. He’s not stupid.
And once again, 2023 TV shows are not taped (or filmed) for that matter. They’re shot, or recorded (digitally), and have been for the past twenty years or more.
Oh, come on. People use “film” generically, not specifically. Look at all the older folks who still use the word “dial” for their phones and TVs, even though they haven’t had any in decades.
Uh oh. Alexi’s response gave me the “What?! I didn’t know about this and now I’m pissed” vibe, lol.
I hope the new role works out for Nathan, because I don’t see The Rookie lasting too much longer.