The Flash’s New Release Date Falls on the Anniversary of Michael Keaton’s Batman Debut

Thursday brought some surprising updates with regards to the live-action DC multiverse, as Warner Bros. announced new release dates for four of the franchise’s upcoming films. Among them was yet another release date change for The Flash, which is moving from November 4, 2022 to June 23, 2023. The news surprised fans, especially given the numbers of delays that already occurred with the film over the years, and given the film’s supposed significance in the DC canon going forward. That being said, the newest date for the film does prove to be particularly fitting in one regard, as it happens to fall on the exact anniversary of when Michael Keaton’s Batman, who is making a highly-anticipated return in The Flash, first debuted onscreen in Tim Burton’s Batman. That Batman film was released on June 23, 1989, with The Flash poised to arrive exactly 34 years later to the day.

“When it came around again, first of all, I was getting curious about it. I thought, ‘Boy, what would that be like?’ And then, coincidentally, there were murmurs, and I got a call from Warner Bros. They wanted to talk to me about something and there was hints of Batman,” Keaton said of his The Flash return while appearing on The Jess Cagle Show late last year. “It has to be good. There’s no reason to do it if it’s not good. It’s not gonna really change anything. And I just jumped in and had fun. And why would you not? You know, I mean, director Andy Muschietti is fantastic, and he’s really creative. I don’t know. It’s fun.”

The Flash is set to be directed by IT‘s Muschietti, with a script from Birds of Prey and Batgirl’s Christina Hodson. It will star Ezra Miller as Barry Allen / The Flash, both Ben Affleck and Keaton’s iterations of Bruce Wayne / Batman, as well as Sasha Calle as Supergirl, Kiersey Clemons as Iris West, Ron Livingston as Henry Allen, Maribel Verdu as Nora Allen, Ian Loh as a young Barry Allen, and Saoirse-Monica Jackson and Rudy Mancuso playing currently-unknown roles.

“I think Andy’s fantastic,” Hodson shared with ComicBook.com back in 2020. “What I loved about IT, The first one, in particular, is that he can do scary, he can do big genre stuff, but he can also do real heart. He can give those characters real emotional depth. And that’s something that I would love to see in Flash.”

“What captivated me about The Flash is the human drama in it,” Muschietti previously revealed. “The human feelings and emotions that play in the drama [of it]. It’s going to be fun, too. I can’t promise that there will be any horror [elements in it], really, but it’s a beautiful human story.”

As mentioned above, The Flash is scheduled to be released in theaters on June 23, 2023.