Deadline is reporting that Hung star Stephen Amell will play the role of Oliver Queen aka Green Arrow in the CW pilot, Arrow.
According to the character breakdowns released last week, Amell will play “27 year old reformed bad boy, who after having spent five years shipwrecked on a tiny, brutally dangerous island in the South China Sea returns to town a different man. Or to be more specific, a tortured, thoughtful master of the bow with a ferocious determination to make a difference”.
Amell is best known recently for Hung and Private Practice, but has also turned up in several episodes of The Vampire Diaries and 90210. This is a potentially star-making turn for the actor, and frankly we can actually see him in the role. We will always push for an Oliver Queen with a beard, but if the current run of DC Comics is anything to go by, they are grooming Arrow for a younger, more cutting-edge technology savvy audience. Looks like bows and arrows just don’t cut it in a meta-world.
Arrow is a modern retelling of the legendary comics character and hails from Green Lantern duo Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, who will executive produce and pen the project alongside Fringe co-EP Andrew Kreisberg, with whom they worked on Eli Stone“. The pedigree of the team comes with the added benefit that Kreisberg wrote a number of issues of the comic book series.
Created in 1941 for a DC Comics’ More Fun Comics #73, the emerald archer essentially provided readers with an archery-themed alternative to the already popular Batman. Indeed, Green Arrow (aka Oliver Queen) was also a billionaire playboy, although his origin story saw him take on a Robin Hood mantle after being stranded on a desert island and forced to survive by learning mad archery skills.
Portrayed by Justin Hartley, Green Arrow became a popular character on Smallvilleafter being introduced in the show’s sixth season in 2006, and appeared in over 70 episodes.
