To paraphrase Mean Girls‘ Regina George, the network behind DC Comics’ interconnected roster of superhero shows should stop trying to make The CWverse happen, it’s not going to happen. Fans have already unanimously rejected the name change, and just because Arrow is no longer on the airwaves, it doesn’t mean that everyone is simply going to stop calling it the Arrowverse.
As the show that launched it all, Arrow was the solid foundation on which the rest of The CW’s superhero output was built on, and the cornerstone of the lineup for eight seasons and 170 episodes. After all, if it wasn’t for Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen initially finding a sizeable audience willing to tune into a weekly comic book adaptation, then the shared universe experiment would have never worked in the first place.
The Arrowverse has since expanded exponentially to include The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, Batwoman and the upcoming Superman & Lois, not to mention the annual mega events that see all of the various heroes team up over the course of several weeks to battle a shared threat. And while Stephen Amell may no longer be part of the Arrowverse, in a recent interview, he revealed that he was less than thrilled about the network trying their hardest to foist a new moniker on the mythology.
“It f*cking pissed me off. I don’t care if they stop calling it the Arrowverse. But you don’t need to come up with a new name. I’m allowed to complain about that a little bit.”
When the news first broke, Amell suggested renaming it the Berlantiverse in honor of co-creator Greg Berlanti, but he’s now jumped ship to HBO Max’s Green Lantern series along with regular collaborator Marc Guggenheim. The CW can call it whatever they want, of course, but from now until the end of eternity, fans aren’t going to refer to it as anything other than the Arrowverse.
