This year’s San Diego Comic-Con brought the arrival of the much-anticipated CW series, “Arrow” and Comic-Con attendees were treated to a panel discussion from the show’s cast and crew. Participating on the panel were cast members Stephen Amell (“Oliver Queen/Arrow”) and Katie Cassidy (“Dinah ‘Laurel’ Lance”), executive producers Andrew Kreisberg and Marc Guggenheim and director David Nutter.
The following are the highlights that came out of the “Arrow” panel (Thanks to Cinema Blend and Entertainment Weekly for providing it):
It was announced during the “Arrow” panel that Kelly Hu will be guest starring in a future episode as the DC villain, China White. Some may remember Hu appearing in several episodes on the CW series, “The Vampire Diaries” and she also appeared in the film, “X2: X-Men United”. Hu has also done some voiceover work for the animated series “Young Justice”. As for her character China White, she’s a South Pacific drug cartel leader who Oliver first encounters during his five year stay on the deserted island. White first appeared in the “Green Arrow: Year One” graphic novels created by Andy Diggle and Jock, which the novel series were used in developing the “Arrow” series.
The subject of Arrow’s costume was brought up to the panel and Guggenheim said that Oscar Winning designer Colleen Atwood designed it but they stressed to the audience that “Oliver’s not wearing a costume.” It starts with a leather coat and a hood and “developed from there.” It’s about “function over form” where they wanted to enhance its physical advantage over the bad guys.
The panel tells the audience to look out for more “DC Easter eggs” about the larger DC Universe like they did with the mask of Deathstroke in the preview trailer.
As expected, there will be flashbacks where the show goes back to when Oliver was trapped on the deserted island for five years and viewers will see how Oliver came to be the man that he is now.
Cassidy was asked if she was ready to put on a pair of fishnets (a sign for her to “potentially” play Black Canary) and Katie said that she is “definitely ready.” Kreisberg added that Katie won’t be involved in any action sequences until a few episodes in, but “not as soon as you want but a lot sooner than you think.”
The panel was asked about the differences between Stephen Amell’s Green Arrow and Justin Hartley’s Green Arrow and Guggenheim said that both versions are different because Smallville’s Green Arrow wasn’t the main lead on the show where their “Arrow” obviously will be. Marc also added that Amell’s Arrow is “a part of the nature of vigilante. You want to do a dark story. You want to have a dark hero. You want to be able to explore those things and I don’t think with the tone that was established on ’Smallville’ we would have been able to go as dark as we went.”
As for Oliver being a killer in the pilot, Amell said that “You couldn’t expect that Oliver was going to undertake something so monumental without there being collateral damage. You don’t have to agree with his tactics, but you should respect what he’s trying to do [cleaning up the city].”
Amell tells the audience that they start shooting the second episode on Wednesday.
Before they participated on the “Arrow” panel, Cassidy and Amell talked to Zap2it about their characters’ relationship. In the interview, they mentioned that when they first met, they both sat down to discuss about their characters’ back story and searching how they connected into a loving, but rocky at times relationship. Amell said that they had a fun time speculating on how Oliver acted towards Dinah as an immature jerk, but he was always grounded by Dinah before he’s was trapped on the island.
Now that he has come back from the deserted island, viewers will see that Oliver has changed and become a person that has a “moral compass” with principles that Dinah had always hoped he will be. However, Oliver has to keep these “fundamental changes” a secret from Dinah. “I come back and I’m not the person theoretically that she always wanted me to be, but I can’t show her that yet,” said Amell about keeping the “new” Oliver a secret from Dinah. Cassidy added, “You will really see that these two people really love each other. Oliver actually is a good person and a good guy. He’s just protecting himself right now, coming back from the island and keeping people at arm’s length.”
“Arrow” will make its series premiere on Wednesday, October 10 at 8/7c on The CW.
What do you think of Kelly Hu guest starring on “Arrow”? Are you more excited to see the show after hearing what the cast and crew had to say at Comic-Con?
