Flashpoint (DC Flash Movie - 2018?) (1 Viewer)

[dpippel]

Director Seth Grahame-Smith has left Warner Bros.' The Flash movie (starring Ezra Miller as Barry Allen/The Flash), slated for release in March of 2018, over "creative differences":

http://variety.com/2016/film/news/t...irector-over-creative-differences-1201763814/

 

[dpippel]

Cyborg "confirmed" to appear in The Flash:

http://variety.com/2016/film/news/cyborg-the-flash-movie-1201838408/

 

[dpippel]

Director Rick Famuyiwa has left the project due to "creative differences" with Warner Bros.:

http://movieweb.com/flash-movie-director-rick-famuyiwa-exits/

 

[Sam Favate]

The movie's lost two directors and is due in theaters in 18 months?

Not going to happen.

 

[dpippel]

WB just can't seem to catch a break with its DC properties.

 

[Oliver Ravencrest]

Disappointing but Wonder Woman went through a couple of Directors, there's still time to find another. It's too bad Lord and Miller couldn't direct this instead of the Han Solo movie.

 

[dpippel]

More, um, "great" news about The Flash - Warner Bros. has hired Joby Harold to give the script a "page one rewrite":

http://variety.com/2017/film/news/joby-harold-the-flash-script-rewrite-1201969977/

What a cluster.

 

[Brandon Conway]

I'm glad they decided not to rush for an arbitrary release date when they clearly didn't like where Famuyiwa was taking the film. Better to get it right than to just get it out. Besides, they had already given the March 2018 release date to Tomb Raider, which started production this week.

The character is gonna be in Justice League in 10 months, and Ezra Miller isn't going anywhere.

Everyone needs to remember that Geoff Johns and Jon Berg were just put in charge of DC Films in May 2016. Since then they have wiped the DC upcoming film slate clean after this year, with only Aquaman being officially scheduled for October 2018 (which just had its table read and costume fittings, so it's starting production within the next few months). Otherwise, all of their other DC dates from 2018-2020 are generically redacted to "Untitled DC Film".

Current schedule:

6/2/17 - Wonder Woman (in post-production)
11/17/17 - Justice League (in post-production)
7/27/18 - SAVED DATE
10/5/18 - Aquaman (in pre-production, starts shooting in Spring 2017)
4/5/19 - SAVED DATE
6/14/19 - SAVED DATE
11/1/19 - SAVED DATE
4/3/20 - SAVED DATE
7/24/20 - SAVED DATE

So when will they announce the new revised schedule, detailing which films take up some of those slots (or revised slots)? My theory is that they know they absolutely cannot announce a revised lineup that doesn't have the exact release date for The Batman. So until Affleck gets everything set in stone the announcement isn't gonna happen. It's the lynchpin. If they tried to announce the new schedule and The Batman isn't on there with a specific date, then everyone will simply ask "Where's the damn Batman?!" and be super negative about all of it, no matter what else is on the schedule.

And the films they want to schedule (or just haven't revealed on a new schedule) are:

The Batman (Affleck)
Gotham City Sirens (Ayer)
The Flash
Black Adam / Shazam (possibly tied into Man of Steel 2?)
Man of Steel 2
Dark Universe (Liman)
Cyborg / Teen Titans
Green Lantern Corps
Suicide Squad 2
Deadshot
Justice League 2 (Snyder)

Among these are the 6 films that will get scheduled on those saved dates, and then 4-5 more films that are being developed for the 2021-22 time frame.

TL;DR - We're seeing the ripple effects of creating DC Films and allowing Johns/Berg to reshape the schedule, and we're likely not getting a full revised DCEU schedule until The Batman's release date is locked down.

 

[dpippel]

Sorry, but a "page one rewrite" spells deep, deep trouble any way you want to try and spin it Brandon.

 

[Alf S]

Is The Flash really a highly sought after movie character? Looking at that list of upcoming movies, they all look like uninteresting dogs to me. Marvel has cornered the market IMO for cool action/superheroes. DC, not so much.

 

[Wayne_j]

The Flash movie would be in demand if only because there is currently a well received Flash TV series.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Sorry, but a "page one rewrite" spells deep, deep trouble any way you want to try and spin it Brandon.

Why? They have thousands of stories about the character from the comics they can mine. Other than the starting point being wherever Justice League leaves the character they have a variety of options of how to move forward.

When Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012 they also bought Lucas' treatments for Episodes 7-9. They eventually tossed those aside and did a "page one rewrite" of Episode 7 with production starting less than two years later.

Words on pages are relatively the easiest thing to start fresh with.

Is The Flash really a highly sought after movie character? Looking at that list of upcoming movies, they all look like uninteresting dogs to me. Marvel has cornered the market IMO for cool action/superheroes. DC, not so much.

The character has been around in comics (in one way or another) since 1940. Even with mixed-to-poor reviews the 3 DCEU films have made $2.3 billion at the box office. So, yeah, there's an audience.

 

[dpippel]

Um, OK. If you say so.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Um, OK. If you say so.

If Geoff Johns as overseeing producer hadn't written some of the best Flash comics in the character's history I'd be more worried. But he has, so in the end I just don't see him allowing a major departure from what makes the character work.

 

[dpippel]

I'm talking about the production itself being in trouble. It's lost two directors, the existing script has just been thrown in the circular file, and it's a DC property. Sounds to me like more floundering around by management not knowing what to do with one if its most popular comic book characters.

Maybe they'll just give it to Snyder...

 

[Brandon Conway]

That can happen when you have a change in management 22 months before the original target release date. If the new bosses don't like where the project is headed in the writing stage it's better to not go into production and restart the writing stage than to just charge ahead.

There have been films with major changes of writer and/or director during actual production that have turned out just fine (Ant-Man, Rogue One). This isn't even in that worse scenario.

 

[Sam Favate]

I will never understand why Warner wouldn't take the TV Flash to the big screen. It is as successful an interpretation of a character as has ever been done.

Just one more example of how the DC film universe keeps making the wrong choices. IMO.

 

[dpippel]

That can happen when you have a change in management 22 months before the original target release date. If the new bosses don't like where the project is headed in the writing stage it's better to not go into production and restart the writing stage than to just charge ahead.

There have been films with major changes of writer and/or director during actual production that have turned out just fine (Ant-Man, Rogue One). This isn't even in that worse scenario.

But it's DC, and so far DC's track record with comic book adaptations has been rocky to say the least. Marvel has been consistently successful both critically and commercially, and Star Wars is Star Wars. Apples and oranges IMO.

Personally I hope they turn things around and I'm not saying that these developments with The Flash mean that it can't be a good film. I'm merely pointing out that things are not looking great right now. If you don't feel the same way then we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

[Brandon Conway]

I will never understand why Warner wouldn't take the TV Flash to the big screen. It is as successful an interpretation of a character as has ever been done.

Because he'd look ridiculous on the big screen. It's a TV Show interpretation, through and through.

It also would come with HUGE continuity baggage (Arrow, Supergirl, etc). which has different versions of characters already established in the film universe.

Additionally, there's a reason the MCU TV shows can comment about events in the movies, but the MCU movies never reference the TV shows: because the audience for the movies are SIGNIFICANTLY larger than the TV shows.

The Flash TV Show is a fun comic book procedural, but it's very much a TV show aesthetic, in style, writing, and characterization.

 

[Brandon Conway]

But it's DC, and so far DC's track record with comic book adaptations has been rocky to say the least. Marvel has been consistently successful both critically and commercially, and Star Wars is Star Wars. Apples and oranges IMO.

Personally I hope they turn things around and I'm not saying that these developments with The Flash mean that it can't be a good film. I'm merely pointing out that things are not looking great right now. If you don't feel the same way then we'll just have to agree to disagree.

People wanted DC to "get their own Feige in charge". He's only been in charge 8 months. Let's give him some time to see what he does with the properties. There's a reason there have been a half dozen insider scoops about projects with new screenwriters in the last couple weeks: the new direction for the films has been set, and now they're working on writing it.