Warner Bros. has had all kinds of trouble getting a standalone The Flash movie off the ground, but hope has emerged. Potentially. THR reports that IT director Andy Muschietti is reportedly in talks to direct The Flash, with Ezra Miller reprising his speedy titular role.
Screenwriter Christina Hodson, in demand thanks to reinvigorating the Transformers franchise with Bumblebee and having penned the Birds Of Prey script, is reportedly being courted to to write the film.
Although these deals are not confirmed, getting Muschietti and Hodson on board would be music to the ears of Flash fans. Getting The Fastest Man Alive his own movie shouldn’t be this hard, but it’s proven to be. Warner Bros. have had trouble getting the project off the ground for years now.
Game Night filmmakers and Spider-Man: Homecoming screenwriters John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein were at one point slated to write and direct The Flash, but dropped out for unknown reasons. Prior to that, there was constant scuttlebutt about filmmakers hopping on and off the project, though nothing was ever official.
Prior to this, the last news we got was that Miller himself was angling to write a draft alongside longtime comic book scribe Grant Morrison. The duo’s version would reportedly have been a darker approach to the material. However, WB passed on that script. The decision to reach out to Hodson perhaps implies that the studio isn’t particularly fond of the “darker” approach.
However, Muschietti is fresh off making IT (and soon, IT: Chapter Two), so who knows? Obviously it doesn’t mean that The Flash is suddenly going to be some quasi-horror movie, but WB must have seen something they liked with Muschietti’s work. Pairing the IT director with the Bumblebee screenwriter doesn’t exactly give us many clues as to where this project is heading thematically and stylistically, though.
The more likely reason WB is courting Muschietti is because he helped IT become the highest grossing horror film of all time back in October 2017. Although a Flash movie is likely to make money, WB want those Marvel profits. They’ve already been disappointed by Justice League‘s box office performance, so they’re likely looking for a director with a proven box office track record.
Still, this could all fall apart just as quickly. THR’s report stresses that no official offers have yet been made, so we’ll wait and see whether the two even come on board. Muschietti’s IT: Chapter Two hits cinemas Friday, September 6. The Hodson-penned Birds Of Prey, directed by Cathy Yan, arrives February 7, 2020.
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