The Flash movie star Ezra Miller left a lot of fans scratching their collective heads, after making some cryptic comments that suggest the upcoming DC Comics movie might not have any villains! During China’s version of the DC FanDome virtual event (which held its US showcase this past weekend), Ezra Miller addressed the issue of The Flash‘s villains, during the film’s panel. To paraphrase: Miller indicated that “in one way” The Flash will have “a few villains” – yet on the other hand, there “aren’t any villains” in the movie. So how is The Flash going to pull off that seemingly massive contradiction?
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Here’s the larger quote from Ezra Miller regarding the (non-)villains of The Flash:
“In one way, I’d say there’s a few villains, or so-called villains, who are in our movie. And then in another way, I’d say there aren’t any villains in a way that might be part of the exploration and message of the movie,” Miller tried to explain. “I’m going to say those things because together they make no sense, and it leaves it all kind of cryptic and mysterious. Which is good for a villain to have an air of mystery that surrounds them — until they pop out!”
While Ezra Miller may have been attempting to keep DC fans guessing (and keep fan chat threats going with speculation and theory), this cat might already be out of the proverbial bag. Miller’s Flash co-star Michael Keaton (returning as Batman) previously made a slip when he talked about how Miller’s performance in The Flash compares to one of his own cult-classic films: Multiplicity:
“I mean just did The Flash and there’s a similarity in how – I don’t want to give too much away – but how he [Ezra Miller] has to play against himself and with himself,” Keaton said while appearing on Jake’s Takes. “And we were talking about the difficulty of making multiplicity and the challenge.”
The first teaser trailer for The Flash shown at FanDome clearly revealed Ezra Miller onscreen in one scene as two different versions of Barry Allen, both of them working alongside the new DC movie Supergirl (Sasha Calle). Considering that indicative visual, along with the statements from both Michael Keaton and Ezra Miller, we may already know everything we need to about The Flash’s take on “villainy.”
In short, it’s looking more and more likely that The Flash will see Barry Allen mess with the timeline of the DC Movie Universe, resulting in a snowballing effect that will see him meet several different versions of himself from across the DC Multiverse. It’s not guaranteed that those alternate versions of Flash will all turn out to be altruistic ones – or that the Snyderverse version of Barry we know will remain the hero of his own story.
Die-hard Flash fans have been somewhat happy with the idea that The Flash movie could do away with a worn-out trope of the series: Barry’s nemesis Eobard Thawne, The Reverse-Flash. Having Barry himself become the twisted speedster that terrorizes the timeline (to serve his personal pain) would be the kind of dramatic twist that deepens a movie’s drama, challenges an actor in a new way, and sews the seeds for why an entirely new (rebooted) DC Universe timeline gets created.
The Flash hits theaters on November 4, 2022.
