After eight years of saving his city, Oliver Queen met his end in “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” with Arrow itself just wrapping up this week with an emotional series finale. The show comes to an end due to star Stephen Amell deciding it was time for him to move on, and with the Emerald Archer sacrificing himself to reboot the multiverse, he couldn’t have asked for a better sendoff for his character.
But, come on, this is the Arrowverse we’re talking about, where death has never been unbeatable. With that in mind, could Amell return at some point in the future to once again suit up as the Green Arrow? This question was put to the EPs of Arrow by The Hollywood Reporter. And interestingly, neither co-creator Marc Guggenheim or showrunner Beth Schwartz ruled out the idea.
As Guggenheim said:
“Who knows what’s going to happen in the future? — The one thing I always say every time a character dies on any of the shows, it’s like, we’ve got alternate realities. We got time travel, we got flashbacks, you name it. We have all these different devices. No one’s ever really gone.”
He went on to make clear that the team would “love to always see Stephen back,” but he feels strongly that a return would have to be a fitting one. “If we brought him back in the seventh season premiere of Flash it would probably diminish this a bit,” he stated. “Fortunately we we have some sway with those folks.”
Schwartz, meanwhile, was on hand to joke about prolonging the moving final scene of the last episode, which saw Oliver and Felicity reunited in basically their version of heaven. “There’s always the opportunity to cut to him and Felicity in the afterlife just hangin’ out!” she said.
Clearly, there are no immediate plans to get Amell back in the hood, but the Arrow EPs know all to well – just like the fans – to expect the unexpected when it comes to the Arrowverse. Given the star’s wish to move on from the role, he may not want to come back for a while, but perhaps in a few years. Maybe for Green Arrow and the Canaries‘ series finale many years from now, for instance, he’ll return as Oliver one last time? We live in hope.