Green Arrow has consistently had a presence in live action for almost 10 full years,. First he was played by Justin Hartley on Smallville for five seasons, and Stephen Amell has been playing the character since 2012 on Arrow and other shows in the DC TV universe. Now the DC Extended Universe is underway, fans have wondered whether they’ll see a cinematic Green Arrow drawing back his bow at some point. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that will happen anytime soon.
During his recent appearance on Larry King Now, Stephen Amell revealed that Green Arrow currently isn’t a candidate for big screen adaptation. As he put it:
I've spoken with people within DC and they've said there's no plan to bring the Green Arrow character to the cinematic universe, but things change.
Once again we have a DC hero who has an important role on one medium, but is being excluded in another. If you ignore a young Bruce Wayne on Gotham and hazy glimpses of Superman on Supergirl, then that makes Flash the only hero who has a major role in both the DC movies and television. Right now the DCEU has a fair number of heroes on its plate, from Superman and Wonder Woman to Shazam and Cyborg. Most of those characters will eventually be members of the Justice League, but still, it would be cool to see Green Arrow recruited onto the team, whether he got his own solo movie or not.
Even though Green Arrow doesn’t have a future in the movies right now, it’s like Amell said: things change. By the end of 2016, we’ll only be three movies into the DCEU. 10 movies follow after that between now and 2020 (including two mystery titles), and you can bet that if this franchise can maintain a reasonable amount of success, Warner Bros will order more DC movies for the next decade. By that time, Arrow likely won’t be on the air anymore, so the studio doesn’t have to worry about taking any attention away from the TV series, if that is indeed their concern.
Another reason that Green Arrow’s inclusion in the DCEU would be welcome is because his main love interest, Black Canary, is rumored to be introduced in one of the Justice League movies. While she certainly has enough history and material to be used on her own, it would be a shame to not see the two of them fighting side by side and not explore their relationship, especially since Arrow never fully did. Regardless, given how long Green Arrow has been part of DC Comics’ history and his popularity, it seems like a wasted opportunity not to bring him in, so hopefully the top brass will change their minds
While Green Arrow won’t be appearing in the DCEU anytime soon, fans of the Emerald Archer can look forward to Arrow returning for its fifth season this fall.
