“I completely broke the universe,” says a time-traveling Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) in The Flash trailer, which sends the fastest man alive into a world where metahumans don’t exist. Along with the first full trailer, released online on Super Bowl Sunday, Warner Bros. Pictures revealed an official synopsis teasing Michael Keaton’s Batman return and the Scarlet Speedster’s race against time to save the world from Man of Steel supervillain General Zod (Michael Shannon). Though Barry ends up in a reality without superheroes — including his powerless doppelganger (Miller) — The Flash features the Kryptonian Kara (Sasha Calle), a.k.a. Supergirl, and the Bruce Wayne/Batman of his home universe (Ben Affleck).
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The Flash synopsis states, “Worlds collide in The Flash when Barry uses his superpowers to travelback in time in order to change the events of the past. But when hisattempt to save his family inadvertently alters the future, Barrybecomes trapped in a reality in which General Zod has returned,threatening annihilation, and there are no Super Heroes to turn to. Thatis, unless Barry can coax a very different Batman out of retirement andrescue an imprisoned Kryptonian… albeit not the one he’s looking for.Ultimately, to save the world that he is in and return to the futurethat he knows, Barry’s only hope is to race for his life. But willmaking the ultimate sacrifice be enough to reset the universe?”
After tapping into the Speed Force to time travel in Zack Snyder’s Justice League director’s cut, Barry Allen uses his newfound power to turn back time and save his parents: his murdered mother, Nora (Maribel Verdú), and his father Henry Allen (Ron Livingston), who was wrongfully convicted of his wife’s murder.
“Mainly the emotional aspects of the story were very compelling tome. Obviously, it’s a superhero movie, it’s a big spectacle adventure,but what really brought me into it was the emotional power of it,” explained director Andy Muschietti at DC FanDome 2021. “There’s anemotional message in the story, it’s also a time-traveling story whichis always very attractive to me. Time travel has something that isinherently compelling in general, but this one is very special becauseit’s a very intimate conflict.”
Ultimately, The Flash is “about a boy who is looking for his mother, and that’s what was so attractive to me, that emotional drive,” Muschietti said. But that time travel turmoil could reboot the entire DC Universe: James Gunn, co-chief of DC Studios, said “Flash resets many things, not all things,” heading into the first chapter of the new DCU.
Starring Ezra Miller, Sasha Calle, Michael Shannon, Ron Livingston, Maribel Verdú, Kiersey Clemons, Antje Traue, Ben Affleck, and Michael Keaton, The Flash races into theaters June 16th.
