Arrow might just see its legacy maintained on The CW after the series – the inaugural entry and namesake of the network’s DC Comics-adapting Arrowverse shows – ends its seminal small screen run with an abbreviated final frame this fall. That’s because the network has put a spinoff project into development, this one centered on The Canaries.
The CW has corralled Arrow actresses Katherine McNamara, Katie Cassidy and Juliana Harkavy to star in a prospective spinoff series centered on The Canary Network, a.k.a. The Canaries, the female vigilante group fighting crime in an overrun Star City in Season 7’s 2040-set future-flashes. The spinoff endeavor will reportedly commence in this fall’s eighth and final season of Arrow with an episode that will be used as a backdoor pilot; a valuable bit of real estate to devote, with said season only manifesting with 10 episodes.
Katherine McNamara (formerly of Freeform’s Shadowhunters,) is set to star in the would-be spinoff series, reprising her role as Mia Smoak, the daughter of Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak, who, as a young adult in a possible future, has become a skilled fighter, operating as a vigilante called Blackstar. She’ll be joined by inaugural Arrow main cast member Katie Cassidy, who will play Laurel Lance, specifically the Canary-Cry-enabled metahuman Earth-2 version, who, after an initial incursion as a villain, went down the hero’s path, also serving as a new mentor of sorts to Mia in the future. Rounding out the main trio is Juliana Harkavy, who reprises her role as Dinah Drake, one of Arrow’s versions of Black Canary, this one a metahuman from the main Earth, a police captain by day, who, in the future, becomes the founder of the Canaries.
Further Reading: Arrow Season 8: David Ramsey on Diggle’s Sons
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The Canaries spinoff series (which probably won’t be called Birds of Prey, seeing as Warner is delivering that movie in February,) will have no shortage of Arrow alumni behind the scenes as well. The entire gaggle of executive producers in Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, Marc Guggenheim, Beth Schwartz, Jill Blankenship and Oscar Balderrama are all onboard here. The Arrow backdoor pilot script will be written by the collective of Guggenheim, Schwartz, Blankenship and Balderrama. Berlanti Productions will produce in association with Warner Bros. Television.
Of course, there’s a lot of details about the plot of the Canaries spinoff project requiring clarification, namely the backdrop. While rumors of an “Arrow 2040” spinoff series have been recently circulating, it’s also possible that said future setting could become erased and/or altered in the upcoming ambitious time/universe-bending crossover event, Crisis on Infinite Earths, which will bring together the entirety of the Arrowverse shows. Indeed, given the significance of the iconic 1985 DC Comics storyline for which the crossover is named, we could see the small screen continuity irreparably altered across the board. – However, with a bit of Berlanti-woven time-wimey, the spinoff could see Mia brought to our present to continue the crimefighting Canaries operation, same Bat… err, Canary-time, same Canary-channel.
We’ll certainly keep you updated on The CW’s Canaries spinoff endeavor as the news arrives!
Joseph Baxter is a contributor for Den of Geek and Syfy Wire. You can find his work here. Follow him on Twitter @josbaxter.