Green Arrow and the Canaries Will Take Place in the Future

Green Arrow and the Canaries, the planned Arrow spinoff starring Katherine McNamara, Katie Cassidy, and Juliana Harkavy, will be set in the year 2040 and will take place in a post-Crisis on Infinite Earths version of the Arrowverse, executive producer Marc Guggenheim confirmed on Twitter today. Guggenheim, who will not personally oversee the spinoff, co-created Arrow and has been actively involved with it since it began. He oversaw "Crisis on Infinite Earths" as well as the "Invasion!," "Elseworlds," and "Crisis on Earth-X" crossover events. While the smart money was always on the show being set in the future, some fans had wondered about it, since that had not yet been made explicit in any of the conversations about the prospective new series.

"Green Arrow and the Canaries" is the title of the first Arrow episode following "Crisis on Infinite Earths," and the penultimate episode of the series altogether. The episode will set up the events of the potential spinoff, and Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) will not appear in it.

A spinoff series is not guaranteed, but a backdoor pilot for the Canaries-centric show will be built into Arrow's final season. The backdoor pilot was announced back in September.

The #Arrow spinoff takes place in 2040. We already spoiled that Oliver is dead by that time, so his not appearing in Arrow 809 (the spinoff episode) isn't affected by what happens in Crisis (or, for that matter, the series finale). https://t.co/BkrFGnj6Fl

— Marc Guggenheim (@mguggenheim) November 19, 2019

Before that, in August, Guggenheim teased that some of the characters from Arrow might have a future on The CW after the show's upcoming series finale.

"We're always talking about it," Guggenheim explained. "Like, those conversations are always being had. There is nothing that, you know, has gone so far down the road that we've, you know -- I wouldn't certainly not going to announce it here. But all the showrunners talk, and stuff like that comes up all the time.

"Right now, honestly, like, I think, you know, as far as Beth and the other showrunners of the shows, everyone is focused on launching their seasons, getting their season premieres finished, getting ready for the crossover. "Everything sort of post-Arrow's life, you know, we're going to have those conversations, but further down the road."

Arrow returned to The CW this fall for its eighth and final season, a ten-episode run that will bring the story of Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards, who exited the series at the end of last season), John Diggle (David Ramsey), and the rest of Team Arrow to a close (unless, of course, there is a spinoff planned).

The series' end will coincide with The CW's "Crisis on Infinite Earths" mega-event, which will run for five episodes over December 2019 and January 2020, featuring episodes from Arrow, The Flash, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, and Batwoman. That seems particularly meaningful since in Arrow's season seven finale, The Monitor arrived to tell Oliver and Felicity that Oliver would need to join him — and that he would not survive the experience of helping The Monitor defend the multiverse in the Crisis.

Arrow airs on Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT, following episodes of The Flash on The CW.