Hollywood Has Moved On: Why They Won’t Cast Caity Lotz Anymore

Caity Lotz spent nearly a decade holding down the Arrowverse as Sara Lance, turning White Canary into one of the CW’s most reliable butt-kickers. Since Legends of Tomorrow got the axe in 2022, though, her career hasn’t exactly blasted off. Why? It’s not one thing. It’s a messy mix of online blowups, genre pigeonholing, some rough box-office math, and a pivot behind the camera that might be the real long game.

Online activism dustups that never really blew over

During her Arrowverse run, Lotz got pulled into a few social-media storms. Shortly after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, she posted a Ginsburg quote on Twitter and then deleted it, and briefly swapped in a header image of an American flag that included the letters KKK tucked among the words. She said she hadn’t realized what was in the graphic, but by then it was pure damage control.

In late 2017, she co-launched SheThority with The Flash’s Candice Patton, aiming to build a digital space for women to share and support. The response was mixed: some fans felt the platform centered white women and didn’t engage enough with issues Black women face, and both Lotz and Patton caught heat for it.

Then there was the tweet praising Jordan Peterson’s work. Given his widely criticized views on trans issues, that rubbed a lot of LGBTQ+ fans the wrong way, especially since Sara Lance is a queer character. The cumulative effect: a long, public argument with parts of her own fanbase. As one outlet put it, all it took was a string of tweets for folks to feel differently about a character they loved.

Typecast by design (and by choice)

Lotz gravitated to action early and kept stacking physically demanding gigs: Arrow and Legends (2013–2022), the sci-fi thriller The Machine (2013), the horror film The Pact (2012), the dance-centric Battle of the Year (2013), the prison-riot actioner The Lockdown (2024), and Lifetime’s true-crime Yoga Teacher Killer: The Kaitlin Armstrong Story (2024).

She’s not shy about it either. She told MMA Knockout she loves martial arts, started in dance and stunts, and always wants to do more action. None of that is a bad thing, but Hollywood has a way of turning a specialty into a box, and action leads don’t always get scripts that ask for much beyond bruising and banter.

Fans and reviewers say the range isn’t showcased

Lotz has said herself that action is her sweet spot, and it shows in how episodes were tailored around her strengths. Outside of the fights, the feedback is more mixed. The Pact (2012) split audiences; some were in, others called the performance stiff. The Machine (2013) earned her a BIFA nomination for Most Promising Newcomer, but user reviews often dinged the acting as flat or B-grade. When the roles lean hard on stunts, it’s tougher to prove you can carry heavy dramatic material — and that’s what tends to open bigger doors.

The box-office story didn’t help

There’s one bright spot: The Pact reportedly cost around $400,000 and grossed $5.66 million worldwide, a tidy genre win. After that, the numbers got rough. The Machine made about $205,715 in theaters despite that awards nod. The Lockdown (2024) was a small, limited release with no public box-office tally. Yoga Teacher Killer (2024) went straight to TV, as Lifetime movies do. That old CW-to-A-list pipeline? Still not really a pipeline.

Talking frankly about production rubbed some folks the wrong way

On Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast, recorded before Legends was canceled, Lotz described a pretty dysfunctional period on the show — writers and producers in Los Angeles, the shoot in Vancouver, and a lot of misalignment in between.

There was nobody from L.A., no writers, no producers, anybody up in Vancouver, so they had no idea what the conditions were like on set. And we had a few actors at the time that really did not want to be there. Everyone in Vancouver was not in charge. They had to just get it done, like what L.A. says to do. And then L.A. started sending people up, like a writer up to make that bridge, and then we got a producing director, and that helped a lot.

She wasn’t wrong to tell her story, but the business prefers grievances handled quietly, and speaking up like that can make execs twitchy. Add it to the pile of little things that make new bosses think twice.

Age and gender bias is very real in action

At 38, Lotz is in that frustrating zone where female action leads tend to fight the industry and gravity at the same time. A few stars punch straight through — Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt, Gal Gadot — but it’s a short list. Without a breakout franchise or a recent hit, the money people usually play it safe elsewhere.

A deliberate pivot behind the camera

Lotz moved into directing on Legends of Tomorrow and earned solid marks for it. Her episodes: Season 5’s Mortal Khanbat (2020, her debut), Season 6’s The Final Frame (2021, the bowling-alley-in-space episode), and Season 7’s wvrdr_error_100_not_found (2022, more experimental).

She described the Warner Bros. directing program as a boot camp focused on the nuts and bolts of TV — department workflow, prep, tech scouts, where the director literally sits on the bus — the unsexy but crucial stuff. On that same Rosenbaum podcast, she also said she wanted to put distance between herself and the Hollywood scene. That sounds less like retreat and more like a reset.

Put it all together, and you get a career in transition: a fan-favorite TV hero, some messy online history, a lot of punching, a couple of box-office stumbles, and a growing skill set in the director’s chair. If she lands the right project — on camera or off — the narrative can flip fast. Until then, the safer bet may be that Caity Lotz’s next chapter happens behind the monitor rather than in front of it.