
Stephen Amell Wants ARROW’s Next Season To Be Written As If It Is The Last
It was announced months ago that the entire slate of Arrowverse shows – Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl will be returning for another season.
Arrow is going into its 7th season, and while it is still being written, series star Stephen Amell doesn’t want them to pull any punches. In an interview with The Music, Amell says he wants this season to not hold anything back.
“We have a new showrunner this year, Beth Schwartz, who’s been with the show since season one,” he explains. “[The writers] have a very clear vision of what they want season seven to be, and what I asked them to do – and it’s not up to me – but what I asked of them is to not just assume that we have an eighth season. I wanted them to write like, ‘If you have a good idea, and you have something you’ve always wanted to do or see on the show, then just do it! Do it right now!’
That approach can have positives – which speak for themselves – and negatives. Say they have been sitting on something that is meant for the final season. The end point they always wanted the characters to end up at. They write it in this season, and it’s great, until the show is renewed for another season, and then they have to do some quick retconning to backtrack a little. On the other hand, Amell could just be referencing little things. An action sequence, a character interaction, or a certain style of facial hair. In that sense, I agree with him. The future is not promised, “do it right now!” Necessity is the mother of invention. There are very creative people writing for that show, they will think of something new for season 8. The writers seem to be on board with that:
“I think that’s one of the things I’m getting out of what they’ve planned for season seven – we’re not writing like we’re guaranteed something beyond this, because we’re not; nobody is. I want them to really push forward and take the fact we have a certain license and a certain respect from the fans to take some chances.”
Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD wrote like season 5 of their show was their last season. It wasn’t, they got renewed, so now they have to continue from their ending point. Hopefully there is an equal balance for Arrow, where they don’t empty their entire bag of tricks now and are empty for when they do have to do a season 8. I would assume that The CW would work with them to come to an agreement as to when their last season is, so they can end it properly. With the show that spawned a universe, Arrow will get its ending in some form.
This upcoming season will be interesting, season 6 was a reset of sorts, and the finale left the characters in dire straits. Going pedal to the metal from the get go could offer interesting results. Amell also teases what to expect:
“I think that you will see some very, very new and exciting characters in season seven; characters that have a canon in DC,” he allows. “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.
Do you think Amell knows something we don’t? Were they told that this is the last season of the show? Or do you think Amell took a page from Dominic Toretto’s book from Fast and Furious and wants his show to live “a quarter mile at a time”?
Amell is certainly reflecting on his time with the show, like it is coming to a close.
“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.”
The 7th season of Arrow will air (on its new night) Mondays at 9/8C right after Legends of Tomorrow only on The CW.
Source: The Music
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