How Smallville's Alan Ritchson Felt When Warner Bros. Replaced Him As Aquaman
Long before Alan Ritchson established his dominating presence playing the title role in the Amazon Prime series "Reacher," the actor needed to build a solid list of credits to get him to where he is today.
Ritchson kicked off his career with a limited gig on the hit series "Smallville" where he appeared in four episodes as Arthur Curry, aka Aquaman over the show's last five seasons starting in 2005. However, when The WB was casting its pilot episode for an "Aquaman" spinoff series in 2006, the network — which was undergoing huge changes at the time — picked Justin Hartley instead of Ritchson to play DC's legendary aquatic superhero.
In a 2022 interview with his former "Smallville" co-star Michael Rosenbaum for his "Inside of You" podcast, Ritchson told the Lex Luthor actor that he wasn't upset by Hartley's casting in the "Aquaman" pilot, especially since the Clark Kent-Superman series was his big introduction to showbiz. "I wasn't mad at all. Why would I be mad? I hadn't done anything at all; Smallville was my first gig," Ritchson told Rosenbaum.
Ritchson said he was certainly considered to star in the "Aquaman" series, which was based on his first appearance as Aquaman in Season 5, Episode 4 of "Smallville" in 2005. "It was, like, a ratings record, that episode, you know, which was astounding ... it did really well, apparently so, they wanted to greenlight a spinoff," Ritchson recalled for Rosenbaum. "And they were like, 'Congratulations,' and I was getting calls from people at the studio ... These people were like prepping me for, like, the biggest show on TV."
Ritchson says he didn't land the Aquaman spinoff because he was an unknown
During his interview with Michael Rosenbaum, Alan Ritchson said the momentum for him reprising Aquaman in the character's spinoff series began to shift after The CW's creation. "We started working on a deal ... and the president of UPN had taken over and he was looking at this roster of shows and going, 'Who the hell is that guy?' Which is the same thing I would do," Ritchson told Rosenbaum. "I was sitting there like, 'I can't believe it was this easy. I've been here three weeks and I've got my own show?'" Ritchson explained that a week later the studio informed him, "'Actually, Justin Hartley just came off [the NBC soap opera] 'Passions' and he's available, and we're going to go with him.'"
Sadly for Hartley, his "Aquaman" pilot was not ordered to series. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the pilot episode for "Aquaman" — which the trade publication blasted as hokey — was eventually made available for fans to rent on iTunes. Ironically, Hartley went on to land a major role in "Smallville" as Oliver Queen-Green Arrow, beginning in Season 6, Episode 2 in 2006 and appeared in 72 episodes of the series overall.
Ritchson, of course, finally got his own high-profile series by landing the role of author Lee Child's ex-military hero Jack Reacher in "Reacher," which debuted in 2022. On November 7, the "Reacher" Season 2 trailer debuted Jack's explosive return, which teases the show's December 15 return.
Meanwhile, Aquaman is being played by Jason Momoa, presumably for the last time in "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom," which is pegged for December 22 release.