In what was honestly a bit of a surprise to me when it was announced as finding its third director(s), Flashpoint – which will focus on Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen as introduced in Justice League (really, Batman v. Superman, but who’s counting anymore?) – is a project that keeps on keeping on.
I legitimately figured there was no way that after Justice League was slaughtered by critics, though still better received than both Batman v. Superman and Suicide Squad, and met with a tepid audience reaction, that WB would possibly keep going with what is ostensibly another Justice League film this soon. That is, provided it plays like the comics, which given the prominence of Aquaman and Wonder Woman in the story makes that seemingly likely.
Flashpoint is also still presumed to be the film where Ben Affleck is going to make his on-screen exit as Batman, which I’m still not wholly certain will play as well that idea sounds. “So wait…because Barry messed with the timestream, Bruce is a different person altogether now?”.
Again, it’s all speculation, but these are the questions your faithful Beat Entertainment Editor continues to ponder anytime this project is brought up.
In good timing, the prospective new Flashpoint directors, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, have a new film hitting theaters next week called Game Night (a movie that, based on trailers, could really go either way, though I’m sort of leaning towards “bad February comedy”). So they’re hitting the press circuit, with junket press going right into superhero movie-mode, and Collider gets some choice quotes from the pair on the possible film…that aren’t quite signed on for yet….:
“They were interested in us because of Game Night and Spider-Man. Because of that combination they did kind of say, ‘We’d like you to consider one of our movies.’ So we read a number of the scripts, and that was one — we’re huge fans of the character, I collected the comic books as a kid. It was an exciting possibility.”
And to really highlight this is, without doubt, going to be the WB/DC take on Spider-Man:
“Just the fact that the character is unique from other superheroes in that he doesn’t completely have his shit together like Superman does. It’s more of a ground-level superhero.”
It’s really funny to me how that seems to be the ongoing default for Barry Allen now, even stretching back to Justice League: Mortal when George Miller had cast Adam Brody in the role, into the current CW tv-show with the character suddenly being extremely Parker-esque, to Miller’s portrayal in Justice League, which took it one step beyond. And then they hire the Spider-Man: Homecoming writers!
It’s a far cry from the fairly stoic version that the Silver Age was built upon, and more in line with Wally’s time in the costume. But I guess for a movie audience those more easily definable personalities are key, and as such, Barry is now the “funny, relateable guy”.
Anyway, Flashpoint…a film with an extremely bumpy production history. Hopefully the studio has finally found their guys to get this thing, and the future of the DC Films lineup, solidified.
Hi Kyle, I would add that the Flash in the Justice Leaue animated and JLU animated shows was very quippy in a Spider-man way. Having listened to the audio commentaries, the creatives said it was to make Flash the relatable entry point for kids into this cartoon of gods (kids like running fast anyway). Just putting it out there as I’ve seen many comments about Spidey-like Flash in Justice League; the cartoon was a precedent
Absolutely, though the one thing I might say about that is that Michael Rosenbaum was playing Wally, and not totally far afield of how he was portrayed in Morrison/Porter’s JLA…but for general audience purposes, you’re absolutely right, and it probably set the tone somewhere along the line that the movies decided to follow.
Superman in no way has his shit together. He bummed around until his mid-30s trying to find himself. Killed thousands on his first big mission and got killed on the second. That guy’s a hot Kryptonian mess.
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