Stephen Amell has played Arrow's Oliver Queen for over half of a decade, and while some folks may still have a soft spot for Justin Hartley's performance on Smallville, there's no disputing Amell is the definitive live-action Green Arrow. The fan-friendly actor appears to take some pride in that fact, and recently stated he hopes that Arrow's legacy continues long after the show ends and makes a lasting impact on the Green Arrow mythos at large.
I think that you will see some very, very new and exciting characters in Season 7; characters that have a canon in DC. And I think that we will continue to do what we've always done on this show, which I'm very, very proud of, which is create some new characters. Hopefully, long after I'm done playing Arrow -- whenever that may be -- hopefully we'll carry on in the DC universe. One of the things that I'm most proud about is that, 25 years from now, if they made a Green Arrow film, they would have to make it with John Diggle and Felicity Smoak and Thea Queen and Sara Lance and a lot of the characters that we've brought in and have created as we've gone along. I hope that not only do those characters start to exist in the comic books if they haven't already -- and some of them have -- but I would hope that if you were looking at the blueprint of how to do a successful Arrow show, people would be like, 'Yeah, you have to have those characters -- those characters are a part of it now.' And the fact that we created a bunch of them, or at least reconstituted some of them in some instances, that's the most impactful thing that we've done.
Stephen Amell feels pretty confident Arrow will have a lasting legacy in the DC universe, and hopes that future attempts to revive the character will feel the need to feature nods to the CW series. Characters like John Diggle and Thea Queen, in Amell's eyes, will have to be included in order for a future film or television show to nail it. Amell hopes that Arrow has already left enough of a lasting mark in the DC mythos that fans and future writers continue keeping Arrow-centric characters vital to the future Green Arrow experience. We'd certainly be down to watch Manu Bennet's Slade Wilson exist in all media formats.
Stephen Amell's hopes, shared with TheMusic.com, are not pipe dreams by any means, as DC television shows have certainly impacted their respective characters' mythos in recent decades, with perhaps the most famous example being the creation of Harley Quinn for Batman: The Animated Series. As for Arrow, DC Comics has already embraced the show's original characters like John Diggle, and Arrow's versions of former villains such as Malcolm Merlyn have also been featured. Those facts alone appear to be strong indicators that Arrow is well on its way to the lasting legacy that Stephen Amell has been aiming for, although nothing is ever certain. Especially with DC.
The company's various media empires have had a habit of changing up the most beloved heroes' stories quite frequently, and are no strangers to straying from continuity. Arrow might be a major influence for a Green Arrow film produced in 2046, or the character might be in a completely different place at that stage, with The CW series serving as a distant memory only older fans remember. Only time will tell if Stephen Amell and his legacy will stick to the Green Arrow as Christopher Reeves' did to Superman, or if his influence is closer to that of Superman Returns' Brandon Routh, who also happens to be an Arrow-verse star that knows Amell quite well.
Arrow returns to The CW for Season 7 this fall on Mondays at 9:00 p.m. ET. For a look at other upcoming superhero shows, visit our superhero premiere guide. For a more general breakdown of what new shows are coming to television in the near future, visit our summer premiere guide.
