Why Booster Gold In The Arrowverse Took So Long To Happen

Why Booster Gold In The Arrowverse Took So Long To Happen

Legends of Tomorrow showrunner Keto Shimizu reveals why it took so long for the Arrowverse to get access to the DC Comics character Booster Gold.

As Booster Gold is one of the latest DC Comics additions to the Arrowverse, the Legends of Tomorrow boss goes into detail on why it took so long to get access to the character. Since the Arrowverse launched in 2012 with Arrow, The CW has become the home of multiple DC heroes and villains for a decade. Iconic Justice League characters like The Flash, Supergirl, Superman, Green Arrow, Black Lightning, and many more have made the jump from page to screen. While the Arrowverse has incorporated massive characters, there are still many that The CW hasn’t been able to use. Because Warner Bros.’s film division essentially has first dibs on DC properties, they have prevented the shows from including famous heroes like Batman and Wonder Woman, as well as villains like Harley Quinn.

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Michael Jon Carter, aka. Booster Gold, recently made his debut in the Arrowverse through the Legends of Tomorrow season 7 finale. After Donald Faison’s casting announcement hinted that the Scrubs star would play the futuristic hero, the finale confirmed the popular theory. Booster Gold encounters the Legends during his mission as a time fixer in 1916, revealing he knew everything about the time-traveling group. Despite being a huge fan of the crew, Michael ends up turning on the team as the heroes get arrested by the Time police for their timeline violations.

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If Legends of Tomorrow gets renewed for a season 8, the plan is to feature Booster Gold as a series regular. It turns out, however, that getting permission to use Booster Gold was a long journey for the Arrowverse show. In a new interview with TVLine, Legends of Tomorrow showrunner Keto Shimizu discussed the history of trying to get access to the DC hero. According to Shimizu, they had tried to introduce Booster Gold for a few years, especially due to his son Rip Hunter, played by Arthur Darvill, being on the show in the earlier seasons. She revealed the following:

Booster Gold, obviously, is someone who’s always been kind of tied to the DNA of Legends of Tomorrow because he’s time-traveling, because in the comic books, [he has a] relationship to Rip and all of that. However, he was not on the table for us for pretty much our entire run… and DC is very [protective] about which characters get to go into what medium. So it wasn’t even something we could ask for until there were a lot of talks between us and the studio and the network about introducing a new character at the end of this season, and we asked DC about this character. We knew it was a longshot. We knew they’d probably say no. However, they talked and they had all their internal discussions and did all their equations and decided that, yes, we could use him now. So that’s really how it came about was that we knew we wanted to introduce a big character at the end of the season, and finally, we just said, “Hey, what about Booster Gold?”

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Despite the concept of the DC Multiverse being something Warner Bros. plays with, there are still characters that they simply won’t feature in multiple live-action properties. At one point, Arrowverse creator Greg Berlanti was actually developing a Booster Gold feature film. The script was penned by Zack Stentz, who wrote for The Flash between seasons 2-5, but no updates came out it after May 2019. Like many previously announced DC films, Booster Gold became stuck in development hell. That’s most likely the project Shimizu was alluding to, but given its lack of progression, it’s probably why Legends of Tomorrow could finally use the hero.

While it’s unclear if Legends of Tomorrow season 8 will happen, Faison’s Booster Gold is a phenomenal addition to the Arrowverse. It would be a shame not to see more of him, given how long it took for the franchise to get access to him after all these years. If Legends of Tomorrow were not to get renewed for whatever reason, the Arrowverse could still use Booster Gold across the other shows if they want to. Given Legends of Tomorrow’s occasional time-travel exploration, The Flash would likely be the most suitable alternative. While fans will have to remain patient on renewal updates for the Arrowverse shows, Booster Gold will hopefully be back on screen soon enough.

MORE: The Arrowverse Joker Just Did Something Matt Reeves’ Batman Trilogy Can’t

Source: TVLine

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Andy Behbakht
(957 Articles Published)

Andy is a senior writer at Screen Rant as he has covered the world of entertainment journalism since 2010, including superhero/comic book media. In addition to his work as a reporter, Andy co-hosts The Flash Podcast while running and producing the entire DC TV Podcasts network. He is also the founder/editor-in-chief of The Marvel Report since Fall 2015. Andy has previously written for sites such as FanSided, KSiteTV, TV Fanatic, It’s Just Movies, Heroic Hollywood, TV Overmind, and more.

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