Producer Reveals Deathstroke Debut on Arrow Wasn’t Planned
Arrow‘s fans may be a little bit surprised here, but The CW never initially meant Deathstroke to debut into the Arrowverse. Or, at least, not right from the first episode of the successful series. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Arrow consulting producer Marc Guggenheim revealed that Slade Wilson’s debut in the series wasn’t planned.
“We had no intention seeing Deathstroke or Slade Wilson [Manu Bennett] in season 1, and we saw them both,” Guggenheim said.
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Guggenheim then credited director David Nutter and writer Geoff Johns for inserting Deathstroke’s mask just as an Easter egg.
“David Nutter was on set [of the pilot], and he wanted basically a foreground element,” Guggenheim added. “He was like, ‘What can we stick here?’ and he had the idea of maybe something with an arrow through it. Geoff Johns happened to be on set and said, ‘Well, what if it’s like a mask, it’s half-black and half-orange, and it’s basically the Deathstroke mask?’ And we were like, ‘Oh, great Easter egg!’ because we were all about the Easter eggs back then.”
It should all have been just an Easter egg, but then Slade Wilson made his debut in the Arrowverse in Episode 13 of the show. But actually Deathstroke is not the only one character who was not supposed to debut in the Arrow Season 1. Guggenheim confessed that also Roy Harper and The Huntress were never part of the original first-season plan. They ultimately decided not to wait, however, in case the series never got renewed.
“In fact, we never planned on introducing nearly as many of the comic book characters that we have,” Guggenheim concluded.
Arrow will return for season 8 on The CW on October 15. Did you enjoy Deathstroke’s debut back in Arrow Season 1? Let us know in the comments section below.
