His name is Stephen Amell. After three seasons playing Oliver Queen on the CW comic book superhero show Arrow, he has arrived to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot franchise with a single goal: To save this series. But to do that, he cannot play the character he once was (because that would blow a hole in the continuity space-time continuum). To honor his contract and receive a big paycheck along with increased exposure, he must become someone else, he must become... Casey Jones.
Sorry about that...
It was reported via Variety yesterday afternoon that Stephen Amell, best known as Mr. Oliver Queen on Arrow, will be joining the cast of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 as one Casey Jones. The comic book sequel, which may be subtitled "Half-Shell," is set for release on June 3rd, 2016. The initial Paramount/
As regular readers know, the so-called added value element is something filmmakers can add to a sequel in order to entice audiences and assure them that they are not just getting more of the same. The obvious examples are Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight, or the Chipettes in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (spelled it right on the first try!). Or it could just be adding an appropriate actor to the mix, like Dwayne Johnson in G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Dwayne Johnson in Fast Five, or Dwayne Johnson in The Third Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Anyway, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 has the advantage, if they so choose to use it, of bringing on board a deluge of fan-favorite characters such as Casey Jones (check!), Bebop and Rocksteady, Baxter Stockman, and Krang. Bringing onboard Casey Jones, who of course was portrayed by Elias Koteas in the first and third live-action features and was voiced by Chris Evans in the animated TMNT movie back in 2007, is a step in the right direction.
Also potentially helping make this sequel theoretically better than the "plug the Transformers template into TMNT" first film is a change in directors. I like director Jonathan Liebesman more than most, and I'll defend Texas Chainsaw: The Beginning unto death. But the resulting film was just dark-and-violent enough to get a PG-13, yet still seemingly pitched to a kid-friendly audience. It also wasn't very good and showed obvious signs of post-production shenanigans. Come what may, the choice of David Green, helmer of Earth to Echo (an actual PG-rated kids adventure movie) feels like another step in the right direction. Let's just say I felt really stupid last summer telling my daughter that she couldn't come with me to the TMNT press screening.
Anyway, the pick of Stephen Amell for the role of Casey Jones is a nice mix of star+concept. Obviously you get the free publicity of casting "that guy from Arrow," but you also get Mr. Amell's eye-popping social media presence. I don't follow a lot of celebrities on Facebook for the same reason I don't get my picture taken with celebrities at screenings (they are working, I am working, and I don't pretend that they are my friend). But I follow Mr. Amell's Facebook feed for its sheer entertainment value. This is a guy who doesn't just talk to his Facebook followers to go watch tonight's episode of Arrow. He puts up copious and varied content almost constantly and seems to absolutely love doing it. He actively encourages the participation of his rabid fanbase in everything from copious charity drives to satirical fan art and memes.
This is a guy so confident in the loyalty of his fanbase and the relative quality of his work as an actor and a producer that he actively encourages fans to make fun of his own show. I'm not saying Stephen Amell got cast as Casey Jones because his Facebook page has 3.4 million "likes", his Instagram account has 800,000 followers, and he has 782,000 Twitter followers (he apparently had terrific chemistry with Megan Fox). But if you have to choose between two capable actors for a role, you might tend to go with the one with the massive social media following and who uses that following to sell the heck out of his or her would-be products. We are still very early in terms of determining to what extent stars with copious social media "fans" can translate that online fandom into ticket sales and ratings.
Without taking anyway anything from the marketing departments, it's not inexplicable to think that, for example, Bella Thorne's 8 million Facebook followers and 5.96 million Twitter followers played at least a token role in legging Lionsgate and CBS's The Duff to nearly $34 million domestic off an $10.8m debut weekend a month ago. As you may remember, it was a debate about whether or not Kevin Hart should be paid extra for plugging Think Like A Man Too to his 14 million Twitter followers that led Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper to call him a "whore" in those famously leaked emails. This is something that is on the studios' minds, especially with certain TV shows (Community and Pretty Little Liars come to mind) where their ratings are dwarfed by the passionate participation of their loyal and social media-savvy fans.
I'm sure Stephen Amell's followers won't necessarily flock to see him in a dark and gritty drama about heroin addiction or what-have-you. But it's not unreasonable to think that many of the over/under 3 million weekly viewers of the CW Arrow show and/or the 3.45 million Facebook followers might also be made up of the demographic that might flock to a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequel, especially now that Mr. Oliver Queen will be playing a major supporting role as a relatively well-known character. Assuming the producers think he works in the part, they lose absolutely nothing to get that demographic more interested in the TMNT sequel than they were yesterday.
I don't have anything more profound than that to offer about that. It's just the rare geek-centric casting announcement that caught me by surprise and actually made me smile, so I felt like writing about it. It is odd that I am so (unrealistically?) hopeful for a sequel to a film that I put on my worst-of list last year, but Platinum Dunes and Paramount seem to be going in a somewhat different, and hopefully more fantastical direction this time out. Casting a cult geek star as a cult geek character is a step in the right direction, a win for the female gaze in theoretically male-targeted blockbusters, and a big win for the actor who surely wants to continue to work after Arrow eventually ends. The whole "social media footprint = ticket sales/ratings" thing is still very much in the realm of uncharted waters. But the very least, I can share this all-but-certain spoiler: Casey Jones will surely spend much of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II without a shirt.
