Arrow Co-Creator Reacts to Green Arrow and the Canaries Announcement

Arrow co-creator and former Arrow and DC's Legends of Tomorrow showrunner Marc Guggenheim took to Twitter today to clarify some details about the cancellation of a planned Green Arrow and the Canaries series, and to express thanks to the actresses who would have been the series' leads. Following today's official announcement that the series -- which had a backdoor pilot in the final season of Arrow -- was not going to go forward, some fans were sad to hear it wasn't happening, but glad that The CW had finally made an announcement. Guggenheim revealed that the decision had been made some time ago.

He also retweeted a message from Arrow news site Green Arrow TV, which said the characters played by Katherine McNamara, Katie Cassidy, and Juliana Harkavy need to show up again in the Arrowverse, and thanking them for the work they put into their roles on Arrow. Guggenheim added a "Seconded" to the tweet, which suggested that the cliffhanger left in the backdoor pilot still needed to be resolved.

"The decision was made back during the start of the pandemic (which, I believe, was the deciding factor)," Guggenheim said of The CW's decision not to move forward with a series. "The actual announcement was made today."

Guggenheim himself recently stepped away from the Arrowverse, but still gets producer credits on shows he helped develop and so was in a position to know what was happening.

Green Arrow and the Canaries had been planned as an Arrow spinoff starring Shadowhunters veteran Katherine McNamara as Mia Queen/Green Arrow, alongside Katie Cassidy as Laurel Lance/Black Siren and Juliana Harkavy as Dinah Drake/Black Canary. The characters came together in the year 2040 in the penultimate episode of Arrow, titled "Green Arrow and the Canaries," a backdoor pilot for a planned series starring the trio. Other actors involved included Ben Lewis as William Clayton; Joseph David-Jones as Connor Hawke; Charlie Barnett as John Diggle, Jr.; and Raigan Harris as Bianca Bertinelli.

In the backdoor pilot, Bertinelli was kidnapped by an anonymous figure wearing a Deathstroke mask, shattering the peace of a Star City that had been largely crime-free for the better part of 20 years. Mia Queen is greeted by Laurel Lance, who restored the younger woman's memories from the pre-"Crisis on Infinite Earths" timeline, transforming her into Green Arrow and building a team to take on new threats to the 2040s.

"It's a responsibility -- and it's one that I don't take lightly, but it's one that I'm very excited to get to carry a little bit," McNamara told ComicBook.com. "Working with Stephen, this season, has been so wonderful because I've gotten to watch him do just that and I've gotten to watch how he handled this responsibility and this legacy. And it's been great to follow in his footsteps, in a sense."

Fans will likely want the series to be pitched around, with DC Universe and HBO Max obvious potential destinations. While that seems unlikely at this point, we will keep following any potential moves producers make.