Arrow’s Stephen Amell “Didn’t F-cking Appreciate” Peacemaker Jab

Arrow star Stephen Amell took aim at new DC Studios co-chief James Gunn in a new podcast interview, saying that he felt Arrow was routinely disrespected by the people behind DC’s movies and Gunn’s series Peacemaker. Amell, who played Oliver Queen/Green Arrow from 2012 until 2023 in Arrow and its various spinoffs, has apparently seen Peacemaker now and isn’t too pleased about a joke made at Green Arrow’s expense. In an episode of the series, Peacemaker says to Vigilante that Green Arrow “goes to Brony conventions dressed as the back half of Twilight Sparkle,” with a hold drilled into the back of the costume. 

Peacemaker made a number of such off-color jokes about characters including Wonder Woman and Aquaman, who had brief cameos in the season finale. After initially saying he had not yet seen the episode, Amell now says that he has, and wasn’t a fan.

“That was a little unnecessary,” Amell told Chris Van Vliet on YouTube. “I didn’t f—ing appreciate that at all….Okay. I am just going to come right out and say this. There was just such…between the movies and Peacemaker a little bit, our show was kind of treated like s–t. I get it, we’re on The CW, I get it, it’s TV. But I also get the fact that when people think about the most recent iteration of DC, they don’t think about the Snyder Cut – they think about the Arrowverse. We got crapped on for years, and years, and years, and this just seemed excessive. I’m not actually mad, but I just remember hearing that and just being like, ‘F–k those guys,’ like seriously. I’m up here. I’m working just as hard as anyone else. Do you know how hard it is to play a superhero with no superpowers for 23 episodes a year? It’s really, really, really hard, and I’m not looking for a prize, but, like, maybe don’t s–t on our show.” 

While Amell’s initial response was to take a shot at John Cena for the laughs, he admitted that he isn’t actually upset with the actor, praising Cena and instead saying that if he should be angry with anyone, it’s Gunn, who wrote the line.

“I’ve met John a handful of times, and there couldn’t be a nicer, more genuine person,” Amell said. “If I should be mad at anyone, it should be James Gunn for writing that in the first place. But [John Cena] could not be a nicer guy. It’s not a personal vendetta against [Cena].”

The Arrowverse was the fans’ colloquial name for a shared DC Universe of live-action TV series. Arrow was the first, followed by The Flash, Supergirl, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, and Batwoman. Superman & Lois spun out of the events of 2020’s Crisis on Infinite Earths event series, becoming the final show set in the multiverse of Arrow (although they later relocated the series away from the shared Earth on which the other shows took place).

The relationship between Warner Bros.’ DC movies and the Arrowverse was always an odd one. Arrow launched the year before Man of Steel,  creating two separate live-action DC Universes that were running at the same time. Because the movies were what Warner Bros. prioritized, the studio would periodically disrupt Arrowverse storylines and remove characters, notably members of the Suicide Squad, who had a bigger role planned for Arrow. When Justice League hit theaters in 2017, it coincided with Crisis on Earth-X, the most popular Arrowverse crossover series, and resulted in thousands of fans on social media unfavorably comparing the $300 million movie to the TV  miniseries.

Fans had hoped for characters from the Arrowverse to show up in the movies, especially after Ezra Miller’s Flash appeared in Crisis on Infinite Earths and met Grant Gustin’s Flash. That never happened, though, and the filmmakers behind The Flash have said that bringing Gustin and John Wesley Shipp in was never seriously considered.