"Arrow" season 5 recently cast Dolph Lundgren to play the role of a Russian mob from Bratva.
While at the Television Critics Association summer press tour, executive producer Wendy Mericle said, "In our flashbacks in Russia, we will be bringing in Dolph Lundgren as one of our big bads."
Meanwhile, "Arrow" showrunner Marc Guggenheim also confirmed that season 5 is the last installment where flashbacks will be featured in the series. Come season 6, "Arrow" may only showcase flash forwards.
"Last year, when we sort of realized we're going to go past season 5, we basically made a collective decision that season 5 would be the final year of flashbacks. Next year, in season 6, what we'll end up doing is we'll do some episodes without any sort of flashbacks. We've also established over the first four seasons of proof of concept that we can do flashback stories that don't involve what I call the island narrative, even when he's not on the island," he said (via IGN).
"We still want to make that part of our storytelling, because we do like them. We like when those non-island flashbacks sort of illuminate what's going on in the present day. That's always be a part of the show and a part of the show's storytelling structure. It just won't be telling a serialized story," he continued.
In other news, Guggenheim said that those characters who were never a part of the flashbacks will be the main characters for such storyline. More specifically, Echo Kellum's Curtis Holt just joined the series recently, and the actor was just upped from recurring to regular cast member status.
"We might even do a flash forward. You never know! I think it would be fun to do it with Oliver. It might be fun to do it with Diggle," he said.
"Arrow" season 5 will premiere on The CW on Oct. 5 at 8 p.m. ET.
#Arrow is bringing Dolph Lundgren as one of the Big Bads in the Russian-based flashbacks. #TCA16
— TV Guide Magazine (@TVGuideMagazine) August 11, 2016