Hopped Up on 'Suits,' Stephen Amell Airs Grievances With James Gunn And Warner Brothers

By Andrew Sanford | Celebrity | September 18, 2024 |

By Andrew Sanford | Celebrity | September 18, 2024 |

I haven’t quit many jobs. I’ve given my notice. I’ve politely ensured that my employers could find a replacement before I moved on to other employment. My brief tenure as an HR Manager ended when I was fired for telling an employee to complain to the union. Still, the only time I quit a job happened about six years ago. I walked in, threw out a few important things in my desk that I had spilled coffee on (and then hid), marched into my manager’s office, and said, “I have to quit.” It was the most confidence I ever had in a situation like that because I had secured another job moments earlier.

Having security can make one feel emboldened. Who cares if you talk smack about a place that didn’t treat you right? You’ve got new digs! There is security now. You can finally talk about all the things that pissed you off without fear of needing a reference. You can ignore that annoying co-worker who always invited you to things you’ve made clear you aren’t interested in. Now is the time to say that you did not appreciate a joke the new boss made about you. That’s the road Stephen Amell has taken.

Amell was, arguably, the face of DC on film and television for over a decade. He starred in Arrow, which was massively popular and spawned several spinoff shows, comic books, and merchandising opportunities. It was a nice little corner of the universe that embraced the past, brought A to D-list characters to life on our television screens, and likely inspired a whole generation of superhero fans. What it didn’t get was a movie treatment, something Amell lamented recently.

Appearing on fellow WB TV alum Michael Rosenbaum’s podcast, Inside Of You, Amell talked about the possibility of an Arrow revival, maybe in the form of a motion picture. “I mean, I joked about it,” Amell explained. “Because I think that it would be wonderful one of these days to go back and do something that was in a medium where I could break bones and drop an F-bomb and just sort of go the ‘hard r’ [rating] version of Arrow.” An Arrow TV show would have made sense. Plenty of people were mad that Ezra Miller was cast for a Flash movie instead of Grant Gustin (and were only given more reasons to be so). The market is there, but according to Amell, Warner Brothers was too scared to pull the trigger. “To my understanding, it just got killed at the studio level from people that, I think, were making decisions… that were fear-based,” he claimed.

Amell is set to star in the reboot of Suits, which is made over at Universal. He can afford to fire shots at Warner Brothers’ leadership now! Even if they weren’t in charge when he was there. On DC’s hit show Peacemaker, the character makes a joke about Green Arrow the character. He claims Arrow “goes to Brony conventions dressed as the back half of Twilight Sparkle,” while implying he’s there in a sexual nature. It’s a silly, dumb joke made by a silly, insecure character about a fictional character. But don’t tell Amell that.

“That was a little unnecessary,” Amell said on Chris Van Vilet’s YouTube show. “I didn’t f—-ing appreciate that at all … Okay. I am just going to come right out and say this. There was just such … between the movies and Peacemaker a little bit, our show was kind of treated like s***. I get it, we’re on The CW, I get it, it’s TV. But I also get the fact that when people think about the most recent iteration of DC, they don’t think about the Snyder Cut — they think about the Arrowverse. We got crapped on for years, and years, and years, and this just seemed excessive. I’m not actually mad, but I just remember hearing that and just being like, ‘F—k those guys,’ like seriously. I’m up here. I’m working just as hard as anyone else. Do you know how hard it is to play a superhero with no superpowers for 23 episodes a year? It’s really, really, really hard, and I’m not looking for a prize, but, like, maybe don’t s*** on our show.”

I don’t disagree that Arrow quite often got a bum rap. Regardless, it had scores of fans and defenders. People loved that show, myself included. However, I think Amell is overreacting here. He and Green Arrow are not intrinsically linked. The character existed before him and will exist after. Yes, he has been the definitive live-action take, but another character making an off-handed joke about him is a silly thing to get mad at. Especially when that character lashing out at others as part of his faults is a driving force of the show.

Amell isn’t mad at John Cena, though. He made it clear that he had met the wrestler and liked him. “I’ve met John a handful of times, and there couldn’t be a nicer, more genuine person,” Amell continued. “If I should be mad at anyone, it should be James Gunn for writing that in the first place. But [John Cena] could not be a nicer guy. It’s not a personal vendetta against [Cena].” Amell likely wasn’t going to return as Oliver Queen, but that certainly isn’t happening now.

The actor is moving on (kind of)! He’s got a new Netflix movie and is going from that to the reboot of a mega-successful show. He’s doing just fine! So, why not throw a few parting shots? His desk is already cleared out. What has he got to lose?