Arrow Will Be "Majorly" Affected By Flashpoint

UPDATE: Stephen Amell took to Facebook to correct the comment reported below by the official [...]

FlashPoint Green Arrow Industries-1 Cover-1

UPDATE: Stephen Amell took to Facebook to correct the comment reported below by the official People's Choice Awards. Amell wrote, "Actually I sarcastically said "sure"... And then I seriously said, "I have no idea whatsoever"..."

In spite of speculation to the contrary, series star Stephen Amell told fans at the Heroes & Villains Fan Fest in New Jersey this weekend that the events of The Flash's second season finale would play out in a major way on Arrow.

The official Twitter account for the People's Choice Awards quotes Amell as saying "sure" when asked whether "Flashpoint" would impact Arrow, and then "You bet" when the follow-up question was "majorly?"

When DC's Flashpoint miniseries hit in 2011, it rewrote the rules (and continuity) of the DC multiverse, rewriting 25 years of post-Crisis on Infinite Earths stories with an ambiguous five year timeline during which nobody was quite sure everything that had happened.

The New 52, DC's 2011 publishing initiative, merged three worlds -- the traditional DC Universe, the world populated by the DC-owned characters of the publisher's largely creator-owned Vertigo line, and the publisher's Wildstorm imprint -- and spat out a hybrid world where superheroes had only just started to become very common, and time had been rewritten by The Flash (with nudges here and there by the Reverse-Flash, Pandora, and Doctor Manhattan of Watchmen fame).

In spite of the fact that Supergirl will air on Mondays for its second season, the series will debut six days after The Flash kicks off, making some fans wonder whether The Flash is starting first because the other shows on The CW will be following its lead into the alternate universe of the Flashpoint story.

In the world of Flashpoint, Oliver Queen is the head of Green Arrow Industries, a major military contracting company, who steals steals advanced gadgets from super-villains for military use. Batman, meanwhile, is Thomas Wayne, whose son was gunned down in front of him in Crime Alley and whose wife cracked under the strain and became The Joker. It's been theorized by a number of fans that the comparisons between Arrow's Oliver Queen and Batman might mean that rather than exploring the weapons-manufacturer Oliver, they might have Oliver be gone entirely in the Flashpoint timeline and replace Stephen Amell with Jamey Sheridan, who played Robert Queen in the Arrow pilot.

Previously, Amell had been somewhat more reserved, telling fans during a recent Facebook Live event that Flashpoint "certainly could" impact Arrow.

Arrow returns to the airwaves for its fifth season on October 5 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. It isn't yet clear when the four-show crossover that is expected to tie together The Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, and DC's Legends of Tomorrow will air, although if Flashpoint is to have a major impact on the other shows, it seems likely that would come sooner than later, so as to resolve the issues of Flashpoint's alternate reality.

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