Dolph Lundgren to play villain in 'Arrow' Season 5

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Dolph Lundgren is headed for The CW series Arrow.

Executive producer Wendy Mericle revealed the 58-year-old Swedish actor will play a villain in Season 5 at the Television Critics Association summer press tour Thursday.

"In our flashbacks in Russia -- we're set in Russia this season -- we are going to be bringing in Dolph Lundgren as one of our big bads," she told the audience.

Mericle later confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that Lundgren will portray the new character Kovar. Elysia Rotaru's character, Taiana Venediktov, had first mentioned Kovar in Season 4.

"We are going to bring him in and he's going to be this super big [expletive] guy who works for the Russian government, and is not a friend of Oliver or the Bratva," Mericle said.

"It's part of Oliver's promise to Taiana at the end of Season 4 and it's going to be interesting because it's going to get complicated," she teased.

Lundgren, who previously played the Marvel character Punisher in The Punisher (1989), had voiced interest in returning to the comic world in May. The actor told Nerdist at the time that he'd like to play Cable in Deadpool 2.

"Well, I guess I could kick some butt doing that, I suppose," he said with a smile. "We'll see."

Arrow is based on the DC Comics character Green Arrow and will return for a fifth season Oct. 5. Stephen Amell plays the title character, aka Oliver McQueen, with Katie Cassidy as Black Canary and David Ramsay as Spartan.