CW passed on ‘Supergirl’ before the series landed at CBS

Melissa Benoist participates in the “Supergirl” panel at the CBS Summer TCA Tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Monday, Aug. 10, 2015, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

BEVERLY HILLS, California, United States — Newcomer TV series “Supergirl” landed not at CW, home to fellow DC Comics series “Arrow” and “The Flash,” but at CBS.

Why? Precisely because CW already has those two shows and is adding “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow” at midseason, network president Mark Pedowitz told a TV critics’ meeting Tuesday.

“I am still broadcasting. There is still a belief there’s more there,” Pedowitz said. He cited “Jane the Virgin,” the Golden Globe- and Peabody Award-winning sitcom, as the kind of variety he’s seeking.

Another example is freshman “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” a musical comedy series about a successful young attorney (Rachel Bloom, “Robot Chicken”) who leaves New York to pursue love in the California suburb of West Covina. The show, with several theater veterans in its cast, debuts Oct. 12.

In the case of “Supergirl,” Pedowitz said that Warner Bros. studio had approached the network and then moved on when it was declined.

“I hope it’s a great success at CBS,” he said. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp.

He expressed a measure of regret over the decision, which came before the network had launched “The Flash” and seen the audience response.

“We thought ‘Flash’ would do well, but we had no idea how it would do. … Sometimes you lose great projects,” he said.

Asked whether there would be crossover episodes involving “Supergirl” and his DC Comics shows, Pedowitz said he was open to the idea but had no intention of overriding Greg Berlanti, executive producer of CW’s series trio.

At a Television Critics Association session Monday, Berlanti said none is planned.

“We have obviously to make the shows really stand on their own,” he said. “I always approach these things as a fan myself and I always love when there’s a bigger universe at work, but at the same time these shows really have to function on their own.”