Warner Bros.’ big-screen adaptation of The Flash has seen better days. The standalone feature for the Scarlet Speedester lost two directors over creative differences in one year alone, and will undoubtedly miss its March 16, 2018, release date. Still, the studio firmly believes that the film deserves a theatrical debut. Now that may be happening, as WB is reportedly setting their sights on Back To The Future director Robert Zemeckis to helm the film. More on the story below.
Screen Junkies is reporting a rumor that talks between Zemeckis and WB are currently ongoing. But there is really no way of knowing how they are going without a little insight. To make things even stranger, The Wrap’s Umberto Gonzalez says that there are no negotiations between the two parties.
One has to hope that WB has learned from their fallout between Seth Grahame-Smith and Rick Famuyiwa. Both cited creative differences as to why they walked away from the project, but they both have their similarities. For instance, they are young upcoming directors who nearly landed a blockbuster gig. Both are also relatively experienced filmmakers. Grahame-Smith penned the script for Dark Shadows, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and most recently The LEGO Batman Movie. As for Famuyiwa, he was behind the lens for the Sundance darling hit Dope.
The Flash also got a major script overhaul by scrapping the draft written by The LEGO Movie writers Christopher Miller and Phil Lord. Now the film will be penned by Joby Harold, the writer behind the scripts for King Arthur: The Legend Of The Sword, the new Robin Hood, and a new version of The Twilight Zone.
Should Zemeckis sign on, it certainly would take the film in a different direction. At least tonally. While Zemeckis’ recent efforts like Flight and Allied have been more mature, his earlier works like Back To The Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and Death Becomes Her tell us he has a handle on lighter material. As of right now, he doesn’t have anything on his slate, leaving him open to possibly direct.
[Source: Screen Junkies via Screenrant]
They all saw the rushes to “Justice League”. Why would anyone want to use ass raped Snyderverse characters?
Comment by Wheez Von Klaw — May 1, 2017 @ 6:12 pm
I’d really like to know what the creative differences WB is having with these directors. I know most fan boys automatically want to blame WB for not having the right vision or plans for these characters, or for not being flexible enough to work with these directors who surely have the right vision. But then again, all you have to do is look at the last Fantastic Four movie to see what happens when a young upstart director attempts to inflict their own vision on an established set of characters. You can also look at the case of Ant-Man, where Edgar Wright worked on the development of that film for so long yet ultimately did not see eye to eye with the Marvel vision. And that movie ended up just fine even though Marvel had to wrestle control of it away from Wright. So the directors are not always right. Of course the studios get it wrong enough on their own that it’s easy to be cynical about the whole thing and assume WB is going to screw up these characters. But I actually take it as a somewhat good sign that the studio has a specific vision in mind for the Flash and feels strongly enough about it that they aren’t willing to give a director free reign with the property. We’ll see (if the film ever gets made) if they were correct. Certainly Zemeckis on this film offers some potential excitement.
Comment by Hugomarink — May 2, 2017 @ 1:10 pm