Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse isn’t the only superhero movie going across the multiverse at the June box office. Warner Bros.’ The Flash, in theaters June 16th, speeds into the DC multiverse with two Barry Allens (Ezra Miller) and two Batmen (Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton). In 2015, the studio tapped The Lego Movie directors and future Spider-Verse producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller to pen a treatment for The Flash, the scarlet speedster’s first solo movie originally dated for 2018 when Warners announced the Justice League spin-off as part of a 10-film slate.
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“It did involve time travel, but itwas not a multiversal story. So I think it is safe to say that this isits own unique thing,” Miller, who has not yet seen The Flash, told The Hollywood Reporter. “There are definitely some things that were in the trailers that I’veseen that were were similar to things that are in our treatment, but I’mcertain that, from what I know now of the story, it seems quitedifferent from what we had.”
Added Lord: “A lot of our treatment was about how much food he had to consume.” (The finished film, which screened in full at Las Vegas’ CinemaCon in April, opens with Barry fueling his metahuman metabolism before performing a rescue at super-speed.)
With the 21 Jump Street on board to direct Solo: A Star Wars Story for Disney’s Lucasfilm, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and The Lego Batman Movie scribe Seth Grahame-Smith was to write and direct Lord and Miller’s version of The Flash from their treatment. After Grahame-Smith exited over creative differences, Dope director Rick Famuyiwa signed on to helm the film based on Grahame-Smith’s script and Lord & Miller’s treatment.
But Famuyiwa, too, would ultimately exit after a creative clash with Warner Bros., who turned to Game Night directors and Spider-Man: Homecoming co-writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein to adapt the alternate-universe Flashpoint storyline from the comics.
In 2019, the studio hired It and It Chapter Two filmmaker Andy Muschietti to direct The Flash from a script by go-to writer Christina Hodson (Batgirl, Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey). Per Writers Guild of America rules, Lord and Miller did not receive credit on The Flash: the film credits Hodson with the screenplay and Daley & Goldstein and Joby Harold (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts) with the screen story.
“We almost started from scratch. We did have a base of a story thatwas inherited from previous iterations. The studio knew they wanted todo some kind of intrepretation of Flashpoint, but I didn’t wantthis to be a literal translation of the comic book,” Muschietti exclusively told ComicBook.”I respect the fandom a lot, but I think the fandom would also expectnew things from a movie. Just a literal interpretation of Flashpoint thecomic would fall flat in my opinion, so we populated it with twists andturns to make the story a little more fun.”
Starring Ezra Miller as BarryAllen/The Flash, Sasha Calle as Supergirl, Michael Shannon as GeneralZod, Ron Livingston and Maribel Verdú as Henry and Nora Allen, KierseyClemons as Iris West, Antje Traue as Faora-Ul, Michael Keaton as BruceWayne/Batman, and Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman, The Flash opens only in theaters June 16th.
