It can’t be understated that the parallels between Batman and the Green Arrow from the show Arrow is pretty precise with everything from the millionaire playboy persona, to the dark anti-hero interpretation. So, it was truly a matter of time before some inkling of the Dark Knight showed up on the television show.
On Arrow’s second episode of its current sixth season, entitled “Tribute”, Oliver Queen has just been outed by an anonymous source as the Green Arrow, and in the clip below the character mentions “Bruce Wayne” and “Gotham” by name in a moment of both levity and deflection.
Amell recently told a news source how this came together:
“The original version of that script, which came out right before Comic-Con, it was just Oliver referencing a famous name,” he revealed. “I can’t remember what the placeholder was. I think it might have been Justin Bieber. I looked at it, and I thought to myself, ‘This is a cool opportunity.’ I talked with Greg Berlanti about it, and Greg said, ‘You know, I think that it would behoove you to just go directly to Geoff Johns and just simply ask. You’ll probably have better luck than I would.’”
Luckily, Amell was at Comic-Con when he got the script, and although not able to speak with Geoff Johns, he was able to up to pitch to Peter Roth (President and Chief Content Officer of Warner Bros. Television), Diane Nelson (President of DC Entertainment and President of Warner Bros. Consumer Products) and Kevin Tsujihara (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Warner Bros.)
Amell’s pitch portrayed Bruce as a rival for Oliver.
“I’ve always thought that Bruce Wayne would be an interesting ally on the show and an even more interesting villain — to Oliver, which doesn’t mean that he’s the villain. It just means that they don’t like each other.”
The idea sold to higherups on the spot:
“So anyway, I have this holy trinity of DC and Warner Bros. Television and Warner Bros. overall in front of me, and I pitched this idea. I’ve got all my follow-up points, and Kevin Tsujihara just goes, ‘Yeah, sure.’ I said, ‘Really?’ He said, ‘Yeah, that sounds fun. Do that.’ So we did it. I didn’t actually believe that it would make it until I actually saw it in the locked cut.”
It was pretty cool hearing Batman’s alter ego being referenced on the show, it remains to be seen whether or not we will see some version of Bruce Wayne, Wayne Industries, or any other characters from the Batverse, but I’m definitely hoping we do.
