‘Flashpoint’ directors got to pick their project, explain why they chose Flash over Superman
Now called Flashpoint, the Flash standalone film that’s part of the DCEU, has had a bumpy road, losing directors, scripts being rejected. Now Game Night and Vacation helmers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein landed the Flashpoint directing gig.
Goldstein recounted during a Collider interview that Warner Bros. offered Daley and Goldstein a list of DC properties and asked which they were interested in.
“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.”
Ambitious thoughts since these were the creators behind the Vacation reboot and the upcoming dark comedy Game Night, making the duo less than obvious choices to direct the standalone Flash movie.
The Flashpoint directors go on to say that the fact that the Flash “doesn’t have his s**t together” like some other superheroes is what drew them to the character.
As Daley says: “Just the fact that the character is unique from other superheroes in that he doesn’t completely have his s**t together like Superman does. It’s more of a ground-level superhero.”
Ezra Miller in “Suicide Squad” taking down Jai Courtney’s Captain Boomerrang
Ezra Miller was introduced in earlier DCCU films and now the Spider-Man: Homecoming creators appear to be well accepted by the fans to re-create the DC Universe as Flash goes back in time to save his mother, undoing the timeline.
21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie filmmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller were originally hired to write a treatment for a standalone Flash movie, the assumption being they would direct the film.
Lord and Miller passed on the gig though, heading over the helm Solo, the Han Solo prequel, but later got dismissed from Lucasfilm’s planned standalone film.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter writer Seth Grahame-Smith was brought on board to write and direct. However, Grahame-Smith left the project in 2016, citing creative differences.
Dope director Rick Famuyiwa was the next filmmaker attached to the film, with filming was set to begin in early 2017.
Creative differences cropped up yet again, and Famuyiwa left the project.
After Famuyiwa’s departure, several other filmmakers were mentioned as possible replacements, including Spider-Man directors Sam Raimi and Marc Webb, and Back to the Future filmmaker Robert Zemeckis.
Flashpoint will draw inspiration from the 2011 comics crossover story of the same name.
In that story, Barry Allen, aka The Flash, wakes up in an alternate universe where everything is different. For example, Bruce Wayne died as a child, inspiring his father Thomas Wayne to become Batman and his mother Martha to become The Joker.
Gal Gadot‘s Wonder Woman and Ray Fisher‘s Cyborg are all likely to appear in the film.
Flashpoint is currently expected to open in 2020.
