With ‘Arrow’ getting ready to head into its 7th season this fall, it seems star Stephen Amell has some very specific desires for the writing staff of the flagship CW series. While speaking recently about the new season with The Music Australia, Amell stated:
“We have a new showrunner this year, Beth Schwartz, who’s been with the show since season one. [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!’… 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.” Amell continued. “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.”
Personally, I think this is the way they should have been doing things for a while now. Why there should be any expectation of the show ALWAYS getting another season is beyond me, and writing with every good idea you have, and not holding anything back, is what makes a show great, and of course makes things more challenging for writers in the future. Amell went on to talk about fan reactions, and how he feels any reactions are a good thing for the show, especially this late in the run:
“Obviously, you want to lean into things that you think fans would want, right? Concurrently, I’m all for things that make fans mad, because mad is no different than happy. The only thing that I don’t want is indifference. I always joke with fans about my alter-ego, Evil Story Steve. If you were to tell me, you know, that four people died in the season premiere of Arrow in season seven, I’d be very sad … but my alter-ego, Evil Story Steve, would be like, ‘Oh – that’s very exciting; why’d that happen?’…So, I think that making fans happy, clearly, is what you wanna do when you’re on a show in general because you want people to keep watching, as long as you’re not afraid to lean into things that may make them go, ‘But why would you do that? I hate that. That’s awful,’ because that’s not actually what they mean. If someone screams out on Twitter, ‘I’m gonna stop watching the show!’ they’re probably not gonna stop watching the show, you know what I mean?”
All in all, this goes a long way toward making me a bit more excited for ‘Arrow’ Season 7, especially now that they have cut out some of the non-essential characters (Thea “I’m only gonna show up for 16 episodes a season” and Quentin Lance, who kind of ran out of real things to do a few seasons ago and morphed into the new father figure for the Queens), have Roy coming back, and will have to work with the fact that everyone in Star City now knows the identity of the Green Arrow. What are your thoughts on Amell pushing the writers to hold nothing back? Do you think ‘Arrow’ will get an 8th season? Feel free to share your opinions in the comments below!
Source: Comicbook
