It's been four years since Arrow ended after eight seasons on The CW , and while series star Stephen Amell has since gone on to other projects, including the wrestling drama Heels and the upcoming Suits L.A. , his role as Oliver Queen/Green Arrow remains a big part of what fans associate him with. It also means that Amell gets asked about Arrow pretty regularly including during a recent appearance on Michael Rosenbaum's Inside of You podcast (via CBR ) where he spoke about being open to revisiting a 'hard R' version of Arrow but also revealed something else. According to Amell, there at one point was discussion about an Arrow movie, but that Warner Bros. killed the idea.
"I mean, I joked about it," Amell said about the idea of an Arrow revival. "Because I think that it would be wonderful one of these days to go back and do something that was in a medium where I could break bones and drop an F-bomb and just sort of go the 'hard r' [rating] version of Arrow ."
He went on to say that that sort of version would be fun and that they tried to do it, before elaborating that there was a movie idea that just didn't make it past the studio.
"To my understanding, it just got killed at the studio level from people that, I think, were making decisions... that were fear-based," Amell said.
It's not exactly clear at what point in Arrow's run the idea of a movie came up or if it was something that was suggested as the series was nearing or at its end, but there is no denying that Arrow was a major moment when it comes to live action DC entertainment, particularly in terms of television. The series was popular with critics and audiences right out of the gate and went on to make way for what would become known as the Arrowverse -- The CW's franchise of interconnected series based on DC Comics. That universe ultimately included The Flash , Supergirl , DC's Legends of Tomorrow , Black Lightning , and Batwoman and, while not technically part of the Arrowverse, Superman & Lois , which will end its run with its upcoming fourth season marking the last remaining DC series on The CW to conclude.
However, while Arrow did have a major impact on DC's television entertainment, that doesn't mean that Amell doesn't have some issues with other pockets of the larger DC universe. During the first season of Peacemaker , there was a joke made at Green Arrow's expense in which Peacemaker says that Green Arrow "goes to Brony conventions dressed as the back half of Twilight Sparkle." Amell recently said that he "didn't f-cking appreciate" the jab and that he feels it was directed at Arrow. The series and larger Arrowverse at various times experienced issues with Warner Bros., particularly when it came to the use of different characters which might also be earmarked for use in feature film.
"That was a little unnecessary," Amell told Chris Van Vliet on YouTube. "I didn't f---ing appreciate that at all.... Okay. I am just going to come right out and say this. There was just such...between the movies and Peacemaker a little bit, our show was kind of treated like s--t. I get it, we're on The CW, I get it, it's TV. But I also get the fact that when people think about the most recent iteration of DC, they don't think about the Snyder Cut - they think about the Arrowverse . We got crapped on for years, and years, and years, and this just seemed excessive. I'm not actually mad, but I just remember hearing that and just being like, 'F--k those guys,' like seriously. I'm up here. I'm working just as hard as anyone else. Do you know how hard it is to play a superhero with no superpowers for 23 episodes a year? It's really, really, really hard, and I'm not looking for a prize, but, like, maybe don't s--t on our show."
All 8 seasons of Arrow are streaming on Netflix.
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