Superheroes thrive on Cancon
PASADENA, Calif. — When no fewer than 16 actors and producers took the stage at the winter meeting of the Television Critics Association, no one mentioned the hit superhero series Arrow and The Flash are filmed in Vancouver, but they didn’t have to really.
From Toronto native Stephen Amell, who plays reclusive billionaire Oliver Queen and superhero Green Arrow on Arrow, to his cousin Robbie Amell, who plays Ronnie Raymond, the younger half of the crime-fighting entity Firestorm on The Flash, a virtual galaxy of Canadian actors and actresses play key roles in both series as heroes and villains alike.
Ottawa native Tom Cavanagh plays The Flash’s duplicitous Dr. Harrison Wells, who as the Reverse Flash — a.k.a. the Man in the Yellow Suit — murdered reluctant hero Barry Allen’s mother.
London, Ont. native Victor Garber plays The Flash’s brilliant but arrogant nuclear physicist Dr. Martin Stein, the older half of the crimefighting entity Firestorm. In the DC Comics version, Dr. Stein sacrifices everything, even his marriage, in his study of transmutation. After he discovers that a particle accelerator has fused him with the younger, impulsive Ronnie Raymond, he races to find a way to separate the two before it’s too late.
The Flash returns with new episodes Tuesday; Arrow returns the following night on Wednesday.
Arrow and The Flash have joined Gotham, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter and the upcoming Marvel’s Daredevil on a growing roster of superhero dramas based on comic books.
Gotham, S.H.I.E.L.D., Arrow and The Flash have all touched a nerve with the popular public. In a sign of the times perhaps, comic book adaptations seem impervious to the whim of falling ratings and capricious studio executives.
Greg Berlanti, a writerproducer who helped create the earthbound coming-of-age dramas Dawson’s Creek and Everwood and the prime-time ensemble drama Brothers & Sisters before turning to sci-fi and superheroes, said he never thought of Arrow, which he conceived in 2012 with fellow writer-producers Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg, as being a superhero or sci-fi drama.
“I know it’s probably hard to believe, but we get most excited when we’re in the writer’s room thinking of ways to work with these actors and create stories that are about character. And not just these actors, either, but the people who are up in Canada right now. It’s no different, from my point of view, whether it’s a family show or a teen drama. It feels the same. I really don’t think of Arrow or The Flash as superhero shows or genre shows. It’s getting at the heart of the story, who we’re following and why we should care about their well-being and doing it in such a way that it’s vibrant and interesting and doesn’t just sit there.”
Arrow and The Flash’s brain trust also feels a special responsibility to the stunt team, builders, designers, costume artists and crew technicians in Vancouver who help bring the shows to life.
The truth is that only 10 years ago, conceiving worlds as intricate and complex as those depicted in Arrow and The Flash would have been impossible on a TV budget, Kreisberg said. Emerging technology, breakthroughs in computer-generated graphics and one of the most innovative, hard-working creative crews Kreisberg has worked with have helped bring the impossible to life.
“We couldn’t have imagined doing Flash a few years ago and certainly not Arrow,” he said. “Arrow is a much more stunt-driven show, but we’re lucky to have the most amazing stunt teams on both shows. Every episode that comes along, we’re basically reinventing the wheel. We’re constantly having to come up with new and different ways to do things.”