Canceled Arrow Spinoff Details Reveal the Smallville Return That Almost Happened

After Crisis on Infinite Earths reunited Smallville’s Clark and Lois, the Arrowverse almost went further: Alaina Huffman says a scrapped Arrow spin-off was poised to bring back her Smallville Black Canary in a major role.

Smallville and Arrow technically brushed past each other during the Arrowverse mega-crossover, with Tom Welling and Erica Durance showing up as Clark and Lois. But one Smallville alum wanted a lot more than a nostalgia pit stop: Alaina Huffman, who played Black Canary on Smallville, actually pitched herself for a bigger role in the planned Arrow spin-off.

The pitch we almost got

In a chat with CBR, Huffman said she reached out to Arrowverse co-creator Greg Berlanti while The CW was weighing the spin-off that would have followed Arrow. Her idea played into the fact that the Arrowverse was juggling multiple Canaries at the time.

"I thought it would be really, really cool to play, like, the den mother of the Canaries, just sort of playing that OG Black Canary role."

She did not spell out whether she wanted to return specifically as Smallville’s version of Black Canary or step in as a different iteration within the Arrowverse. Either way, she liked the idea of revisiting the character later in life, which, honestly, would have been a smart bit of connective tissue between the two shows.

Quick refresher: what was 'Green Arrow & The Canaries'?

• It aired in January 2020 as the penultimate episode of Arrow and doubled as a backdoor pilot.
• The setup jumped to 2040 and centered on Mia Smoak/Green Arrow (Katherine McNamara), with Laurel Lance/Black Canary (Katie Cassidy) and Dinah Drake/Black Canary (Juliana Harkavy) co-leading.
• The CW ultimately passed a year later, with the then-ongoing COVID-19 pandemic factoring into the decision not to move forward.

How Smallville fits into this

The Arrowverse had already dipped into Smallville nostalgia during the 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' crossover, bringing back Welling and Durance for a quick visit. Huffman was aiming for something more substantial than a one-off cameo: a mentor-style role guiding the Canaries in that 2040 timeline. It would have been some fun inside baseball for fans who remember how early Smallville was to the whole TV superhero party.

Where to watch

If you want to revisit the roots and the offshoots: Smallville is streaming on Hulu, and Arrow is on Netflix.