Stephen Amell’s New Show Heels on Production Hiatus Due to Coronavirus

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and with new public health and safety guidance being issued regularly there’s virtually no area of entertainment that hasn’t been impacted. Movie theaters are closing their doors during the crisis, films are delaying release dates, and production on both film and television projects have ground to a halt with many going on hiatus due to the pandemic. And, according to Arrow star Stephen Amell, his upcoming hourlong wrestling-related drama series Heels is among them.

During an Instagram chat on Tuesday — something that the actor is going to be doing daily for the foreseeable future thanks to the pandemic — Amell explained that production on Heels had halted due to the situation.

“I was getting ready to shoot my new show Heels and that’s been put on hold indefinitely,” Amell said. “That’s frustrating because I was getting excited. We’ve got an amazing cast. It’s going to be awesome. But for the moment my training has stopped.”

Back in August 2019 it was announced that Amell’s next television project following Arrow would be Heels with a report that the actor had signed on to lead the series, a move that led Stars to greenlight and commit to an initial eight-episode order. The series does not yet have a release date. Amell had announced in January that he had begun training for the series.

You can check out the series synopsis as well as details about Amell’s character, Jack Spade, below.

“Written by Michael Waldron (Loki), with Mike O’Malley set as showrunner, Heels is about the men and women who chase their dreams in the world of small town pro wrestling. Set in a close-knit Georgia community, it follows a family-owned wrestling promotion as two brothers and rivals — one of them played by Amell — war over their late father’s legacy. In the ring, somebody must play the good guy and somebody must play their nemesis, the heel (Amell). But in the real world, those characters can be hard to live up to — or hard to leave behind.”

In the ring, Amell’s Jack Spade is the charismatic villain, or heel, of the Duffy Wrestling Association (DWA). In the real world, he’s its hard-working owner, a husband and father trying to make ends meet while fighting to realize his impossible dreams. He has the mind of an artist in the body of a warrior, and a Steve Jobs-ian need for perfection — and for control. He says he’ll do whatever it takes to build the DWA into an empire. Will he go so far as to risk his marriage, or his relationship with his brother?”