How “Arrow” saved the CW, according to series EP Marc Guggenheim
Guggenheim was warned that the DC Comics show had to be a hit or there would be no more network, he says.
Arrow was on target, and that's a very good thing for anyone who's watched the CW in the past decade or so.
The show bore "the pressure of keeping the whole network on the air," according to Marc Guggenheim, co-creator and executive producer of the DC Comics superhero TV series that ran for eight seasons from 2012 to 2020.
Warner Bros. TV chairman Peter Roth "took us out to lunch and basically laid out for us in incredible detail the reality that if Arrow wasn’t a hit, there would be no more CW," Guggenheim said on Wednesday's edition of The Showrunner Whisperer podcast.
Related: Every episode of Arrow ranked, from worst to best
Bettina Strauss/The CW
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The DC Comics story is about rich, spoiled playboy Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), who is lost at sea, but then returns determined to rid his city of crime. The show was so successful, that the Arrowverse franchise grew up around it, with shows including The Flash and Supergirl.
Guggenheim said he doesn't believe the dark, gritty show would be done today, with the network producing fewer scripted series.
Related: Batman: Caped Crusader trailer unveils new animated incarnation of the Dark Knight
"I don't think we could have done it with the amount of leeway and creative freedom that we had. It was a very special, unique time in the business," he said.
Guggenheim's take on the CW's current creative atmosphere echoes sentiments shared in June by actor Jared Padalecki, who had been on the CW for 25 years between shows like Gilmore Girls and Supernatural and lamented the cancellation of his latest show, Walker.
"My understanding is — and again, this is just what I'm told — that [owner] Nexstar is going in a different direction with the CW," Padalecki told Variety. "I mean, they have an hour of Trivial Pursuit and an hour of Scrabble coming up."
"They're just changing the network around," he said, "where it's not really going to be a TV network as much as it's going to be, 'Here's something fun for an hour that you'll never watch again, but hopefully you watch it. And it's cheap!' And I hate to say that, but I'm just being honest. I mean, f--- it. They can't fire me again."
All eight seasons of Arrow are now available to stream on Netflix, along with several other former CW series including Supernatural, The Flash, Supergirl, Black Lightning, and DC's Legends of Tomorrow.
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