CW sets two-night event for four-way superhero crossover

The CW plans to air its upcoming four-way superhero crossover across two nights this fall.

The crossover will kick off Monday, Nov. 27 with Supergirl followed by Arrow — moving to Monday at 9 p.m. ET just for the event — and will conclude on Tuesday, Nov. 28 with The Flash and DC's Legends of Tomorrow in their regular timeslots. (Arrow will not air on Thursday that week.)

"Last year's crossover was our most successful week I believe in CW's history," CW boss Mark Pedowitz said. "We felt that in this particular case, we already had Flash and Legends paired. It would be better and tighter in terms of storytelling to make it like a two-night, two-hour miniseries. We thought this was a tight, concise way of doing it. Next year, we may go back to four nights."

Earlier this year, executive producer Andrew Kreisberg told reporters that the shows were planning for a true four-way crossover next season. Save for a brief epilogue scene during Supergirl's winter finale, the Invasion action was mainly featured on The Flash, Arrow, and Legends, making it a four-way crossover on three shows. However, it's unlikely that Black Lightning would join in on the crossover fun as the network is keeping the projects separate — for now.

Details on the four-way crossover are being kept under wraps, but Pedowitz did offer one tease: "Let me just say, romance is in the air," he said, likening this big team-up to Marvel's tentpole movies. "What's the joy of having the third Avengers? It's the fun of having everybody get together, that's the fun of it. You get to see a whole different thing. They're all big episodic productions, but this will be even bigger."

Executive producer Greg Berlanti later confirmed that romance does play a role. "That is true," Berlanti said. "Our way of making the show bigger this year was to go even more personal, so it's a big life event for a few different people on the show." Like a wedding? "There are many life events that happen," he countered.

As EW previously revealed, this four-way crossover will be much more emotional than the bombastic alien Invasion we saw last season. "If we end up doing what we're talking about doing, it's going to be pretty cool," EP Marc Guggenheim said. "The crossover is always the most challenging thing we do, but it's also the most fun. Every year we feel the pressure [to top ourselves]. I feel like each crossover has topped the previous one. Topping last year's, that's a high bar, if for no other reason than what do you do that's bigger than aliens? We've got some very, very exciting ideas…. Very early on in the process of doing last year's crossover, Greg [Berlanti] said there's probably no way to get bigger than aliens, so the best way to make the [next] crossover especially epic is if you can't increase the bombast, increase the emotional stakes and the emotional payoffs, so that's a very oblique comment on where our heads are at for this season."

As for the future of the Berlanti-verse, Pedowitz said it's unlikely we'll see any more superhero spin-offs this year. "We have no plans to develop any DC shows this season," Pedowitz said. "That said, I've now said this at many TCAs, and I woke up one day with Supergirl and I woke up one day with Black Lightning, so talk to me in May [about] what we have."

Supergirl returns Monday, Oct. 9 at 8 p.m. ET, The Flash and DC's Legends of Tomorrow return Tuesday, Oct. 10 at 8 p.m. ET and 9 p.m. ET, respectively, while Arrow moves to Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on Oct. 12, all on The CW.