Arrow - Greg Berlanti Talks about Choosing Arrow and Casting Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen

The producers of "Arrow" talk about the casting process, admitting they never saw Stephen Arnell shirtless before they started taping.

[kriza]

I think they got really lucky with casting Stephen Amell. Not just the physical fitness to do all those stunts and the acting skill as the character became much more complex in later seasons, he also got the personality as lead actor of a superhero show to sit through all those seemingly daunting panels at fan fest and comic cons.

[_birdie]

one of the worst decisions DC has ever made was not using the tv actors and characters in their films. (and esp recasting people like The Flash. which made absolutely no sense). think of Justice League if Grant Gustin was the flash. or if they used oliver queen or supergirl in their DC films. unlike their movies, their tv shows are hugely successful. so you’d think theyd wanna take advantage of that fact. not to mention the fact that they do a disservice to their fans when they do things like recasting a beloved character like barry allen. even financially it was stupid. their audiences wouldve grown if the recognizable faces from the tv shows were in the movies as well.
they also made things unnecessarily confusing, like for example, having two suicide squads.
they really should’ve done a better job incorporating their tv with their movies. that’s one thing Marvel does better than DC.

[tobycase]

I wondered who else auditioned to play Oliver Queen

[geniusfollower]

you: they made Arrow because they couldnt get to make batman
me an intellectual: Arrow at its worst, is still better than BvS.

[blackham]

Everyones laugh sounded so fake and awkward when the host was like "Its kinda like an upscale comic con" lmao

[govindsankarmr]

they choose arrow because they can't have Batman, so they created a Batman show disguised as arrow.

[clusternate]

Why did we choose arrow? Because batman is to expensive and arrow can be done as a half assed batman. Villains, premise, power (or lack there of). Arrow Was never that "dark", even though this gossip shit show tries to make him to.