As Arrow gears up for its third season, executive producers Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg have been doing the promotional rounds to discuss the upcoming return of the hit DC show, promising that the new season will see a shift back towards the realistic and grounded tone of the first, as well as touching up the introduction of the new bad guy, Ra’s al Ghul.
“We’re not really planning on revisiting superpowers or enhanced abilities during season three,” Guggenheim tells KFI AM 640 (via CBR). “We are really returning to the show’s roots of a very grounded world where it’s very realistic. We may take occasional artistic license with things, but for the most part, everything is pretty well and truly grounded in real-life things and real-life science.” Guggenheim continued, “I think what people will find when they watch season three is that the operatic scope of season two didn’t really come from the presence of enhanced abilities or superpowers, it really came from the stories and the characters, and that stuff ain’t changing.”
However, Kreisberg has promised that Arrow’s take on the iconic Batman villain Ra’s al Ghul (played by Matt Nable) will be more “comic booky” than that of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy: “Now that the Arrow/Flash universe contains people with powers and contains the Mirakuru serum, it gives us a bit more license to be a little more ‘comic book-y’ than certainly even Christopher Nolan set out to do. A lot of the themes for Oliver’s journey that we were discussing this season are wrapped up in identity. Can he be both Oliver Queen and the Arrow? A lot of that turned out to get tied up with what we thought of Ra’s al Ghul and who he was and where he came from and what his ultimate goals are. All of those things lined up perfectly.”
Are you looking forward to the third season of Arrow and the introduction of Ra’s al Ghul? Let us know your thoughts…
Originally published September 29, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
