Stephen Amell Checks John Cena Over Peacemaker’s Green Arrow Diss

As much as Heels star Stephen Amell has been focused on his training regiment for the second season of STARZ’s pro-wrestling drama series, based on our last couple of updates it seems like Amell’s in his “Arrow” feels almost as much as when the long-running Arrowverse series was tearing up CW screens. So we’re not surprised that the on-screen Oliver Queen would not only take offense with how his emerald archer was trash-talked in James Gunn & HBO Max’s Peacemaker but would also hit back with a squared-circle response to series star John Cena. Of course, the scene in question kicks in when Cena’s Peacemaker responds to Vigilante’s (Freddie Stroma) mention of Green Arrow with some brutal shade: by saying he “goes to Brony conventions dressed as the back half of Twilight Sparkle with a four-inch-wide butthole drilled in the costume.” Well, it didn’t take long until someone in our profession hit up Amell to see if he had seen the scene and if he had a response. Well, let’s just say that Amell had a response, tweeting, “Haven’t seen it. Too busy showing Cena what professional wrestling should actually look like on TV.” Ouch. Sounds like the makings of a real slobber-knocker… THAT CAN ONLY BE SETTLED IN THE HOUSE OF DWL THIS FRIDAY NIGHT! Okay… maybe not… but Cena would be great to have on for the second season.

Here’s a look at Amell’s response to Cena’s Chris Smith engaging in a little “Green Arrow misinformation”:

As Amell continues training before heading back in front of the cameras next month for the second season of Heels, he took some time to share a very cool (but all-too-brief so please share more) look back to when he was first training for the Arrow shoot. Here’s a look at the clip from his 2012 Arrow training days, eight months before the foundational Arrowverse series would first hit screens:

Back in August 2021 when he was a guest on the Hero Nation podcast with Deadline Hollywood‘s Dominic Patten and Anthony D’Alessandro, Amell was open and honest about the final two seasons. Basically, he didn’t want to come back for them. From a creative standpoint, he believed that the show had “done everything” it could after six seasons and that the filming structure had become too formulaic. Amell also found it “frustrating” how the series was always passed over for recognition and awards consideration. While Amell makes it a point of giving individuals their due, it was pretty surprising to hear just how creatively burnt out he was by the time the sixth season wrapped. So who convinced him to stay? Arrow producer Greg Berlanti– and it looks like it took Amell becoming “Green” Arrow in an entirely different way for it to happen.

“I just thought that I had another year, and I thought that I had more in the tank, more that I wanted to share with this industry and this career that I’ve chosen, and I wanted to be inspired again,” Amell explained. “So Greg Berlanti, who’s way smarter than I am, as evidenced by his prolific nature in film and television, convinced me… He basically put me to a place where it would’ve been fiscally irresponsible to not do a seventh season and then complete it with a truncated eighth season.” During his appearance on the Inside of You podcast with host Michael Rosenbaum in November 2020, Amell revealed that there was a time over that summer when production on Heels was riddled with huge question marks. But since Amell was already quarantining, wanting to work, and on stomping grounds that he got to know for eight seasons of Arrow, he decided to give Berlanti a call. Amell’s pitch: he’s already in the area and since The CW shows might be having issues getting American actors over the border, why not whip up another season of Arrow or at least keep it “on the radar,” as Amell asked Berlanti to do: