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Friday Night Lights with Superman: How Greg Berlanti sold Superman & Lois to the CW

Greg Berlanti and Todd Helbing were inspired by Friday Night Lights when they developed Superman & Lois

News by Joshua Lapin-Bertone, Contributing writer

Published on Fri Jan 02 2026

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If you think Superman & Lois felt different from the CW’s other superhero dramas, that was by design. When producers Greg Berlanti and Todd Helding began developing the show, they weren’t looking to their past successes like The Flash. Instead, they wanted something more heartfelt like Friday Night Lights.

“I went to meet with Greg [Berlanti] just to talk about things that we could do together in the future,” Superman actor Tyler Hoechlin says during a panel at FanX Salt Lake 2025. “He had mentioned that he thought he could get this green lit, but that it was going to be taking some people that were probably going to say no and trying to turn those into yes. And so, we did. We went down that road. We talked about that it would be more of a Friday Night Lights kind of feel. A family show.”

“I know Todd Helbing really wanted it to be the same thing. More of a family show, Friday Night Lights kind of feel. He had been involved with the Arrowverse for a long time as well. So, it was just an exciting opportunity I think to tell a story that hadn’t been told with Superman yet. I always like that we got to tell the kids origin story as opposed to his.”

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Joshua Lapin-Bertone: Joshua is a pop culture writer specializing in comic book media. His work has appeared on the official DC Comics website, the DC Universe subscription service, HBO Max promotional videos, the Batman Universe fansite, and more. In between traveling around the country to cover various comic conventions, Joshua resides in Florida where he binges superhero television and reads obscure comics from yesteryear.