The CW developing Green Arrow series

By Sean O'Neal | January 13, 2012 | 5:55pm

Aux Features TV

Besides luring them with Musical Chairs Up Your Ass, a crucial part of The CW’s strategy for attracting more male viewers has been developing another comic-book-based show to replace the outgoing Smallville—just so long as that show is not Sandman, because that sounds like a lot of work. And while the network is still ostensibly developing an adaptation of Deadman, it’s also begun work on a drama featuring fellow DC character Green Arrow, which Deadline reports is nearing a pilot order. Of course, Green Arrow has already been on The CW, appearing across several seasons of Smallville as a supporting character. However, this new Green Arrow project won’t have anything to with the bow-toting billionaire as played by Justin Hartley on that show—or, in fact, much to do with Green Arrow as fans know him, seeing as this project will create an all-new, original story that is explicitly not based on the comics, and will similarly place him in an all-new modern setting, because comics fans are usually pretty much like “whatever” about specifics.

Also potentially damning: The show will be written and executive produced by Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim, who wrote last year’s Green Lantern movie, and whose small-screen work is littered with ambitious yet short-lived failures like No Ordinary Family, FlashForward, and Eli Stone. On the possible plus side, they’re partnering with someone who’s actually worked on the Green Arrow comic book, Andrew Kreisberg, whose résumé also includes the slightly more successful Fringe and The Vampire Diaries. So, a veritable roller coaster of emotions there. Anyway, unmentioned but implied is the idea that this new Green Arrow is being rushed into production just so it can have some sort of Occupy Wall Street scene. You know it’s going to.