Kevin Smith Reveals How Onomatopoeia Would Work On Arrow

Kevin Smith has mentioned in a few different instances just how much he would love to work on Arrow, specifically when it comes to adapting his villainous creation Onomatopoeia for the show.

In a recent interview with Den of Geek, the Director mused on the possibility of that coming to fruition.

"Oh my god, I would love that so much", Smith enthused. "I've not heard from anybody over there, even though I've talked about it in the press quite a bit and stuff. I know I'm going back to The Flash, first week of September, to direct episode 7 of season 3. Still haven't heard anything back from Arrow. You know, I wish, it would be amazing because I would love to write and direct Onomatopoeia in the show. Um, but I know they're doing – what is it? – Wild Dog this year, as well as Vigilante, so maybe they're just like 'we don't need you', or whatever. But, at the moment, anyone over there raises a flag; I'm like 'please, let me in!' That'd be fun as f***."

The character is known for not saying anything other than the sounds of things around him. For example, on the cover of Green Arrow #13, the villain breaks one of Ollie's arrows, only uttering the words "Snap" as he does it. While that worked to great success in the comic, it would probably need some adapting to work onscreen. Smith thinks he's found a solution for the problem.

"Yeah, I've figured out a way to do it that is kinda bad-ass and also connects to comics more or less. So instead of just doing the actual sound – which to me, in the real world, would be like the dude from Police Academy making noises with his mouth – he'll just have little cards. Business cards that have typewritten words of whatever the f***. So instead of him saying 'blam', you'd find this card on your desk and turn around and 'blam', he'd shoot you and stuff like that. Which I think is a little more chilly, you know, for doing it in live action."

"On a comic book page, those big word balloons with a tiny word in it were so f****** sweet" added Smith. "It looks beautifully graphic, like, at the same time it creates an image of 'this is weird'. But I don't know if audibly making noises would ever work in the real world, so I think those cards would be bad-a**, man. So [you read] 'slit', and you're like "slit?", and then all of a sudden you turn around he cuts your f****** throat and dude just cocks his head Michael Myers style and watches you go down. So yeah, I've obviously thought about it a little bit, but it would be cool to do. Hopefully, hopefully they'll tap me."

Arrow star Stephen Amell has confirmed Smith won't be directing an episode of Arrow this season, but that doesn't mean he can't help write the character into the show. Still, even if it doesn't happen on Arrow, Smith would be open to introducing the character on one of The CW's other shows.

"Even if they don't, maybe I could do it on Flash, or Legends Of Tomorrow, or now Supergirl as well. There's a couple of shows there."