On Wednesday, the DC Extended Universe turned 10. DC’s cinematic universe, which was designed to be darker than the MCU, was born on June 14, 2013, with the release of Man of Steel. The Zack Snyder–directed origin story ended with Henry Cavill’s Superman breaking the neck of the movie’s villain, General Zod (Michael Shannon), after countless citizens of Metropolis became collateral damage in a battle between the Kryptonian gods. Man of Steel was supposed to be the first of five interconnected films that would chronicle the rise of the Justice League and a war against the menacing Darkseid. But following the mixed reception to 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Warner Bros. began to lose faith in the architect it’d hired to build its blockbusters, and a family tragedy forced Snyder to step down from directing Justice League during its production. Although his version of the crossover film would reach HBO Max years later, Snyder’s larger vision for the DCEU never came to fruition.
After the release of 2017’s Justice League, the DCEU lurched forward with seven more unconnected, non-Snyder-directed films, which met with widely varying receptions. On Friday, The Flash will serve as one of the final entries in the original DCEU before a new era for DC Studios begins under the creative direction of its cochair and co-CEO James Gunn. The film is something of a belated origin story for Justice League member Barry Allen (Ezra Miller), and it will bring the DCEU full circle as Shannon reprises his role as General Zod.
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Ironically, given its protagonist’s speed, it’s taken a long time for The Flash to make it to the big screen. For context, the pilot of the CW TV series The Flash aired the week before Warners announced the unrelated film in October 2014, and the show completed a nine-season run while the movie endured delay after delay. There was even a time when it seemed as if the film would never be released, after Warners shelved a nearly finished $90 million Batgirl movie amid the studio’s efforts to cut costs, and—more important—after Miller exhibited a pattern of erratic, disturbing behavior.
In April 2020, a video that appeared to catch Miller (who uses they/them pronouns) choking a woman and shoving her to the ground in Iceland went viral, marking the first of many misdeeds. Miller has been arrested multiple times in Hawaii and Vermont, accused of, among other things, grooming a teenager and housing a 25-year-old mother and her three young children in an unsafe environment in secret. After more than two years of arrests and accusations, Miller finally released a statement in August 2022 in which they apologized for their behavior, cited “complex mental health issues,” and announced that they’d begun ongoing treatment.
Despite the many scandals surrounding the franchise’s star, and all of the lives affected by Miller’s actions, Warners seems to have hardly flinched when it came to the matter of moving forward with its highest-profile project in years; producer Barbara Muschietti recently told Entertainment Weekly that shelving the $200 million film was never seriously considered. Early reviews for The Flash have been moderately positive, featuring plenty of praise for Miller’s performance, while Gunn has called the film “probably one of the greatest superhero movies ever made.” (The DC Studios executive also had a lot of kind words for Shazam! Fury of the Gods, so take his words with a boulder of salt.) Whether any of that will be enough to mitigate the film’s public relations problems will soon become clear at the box office: The Flash is projected for opening-weekend earnings of around $70 million domestically, with a more favorable international outlook that could bring it within the neighborhood of a $160 million opening worldwide.
The Flash is only the second DCEU movie set after the events of 2017’s Justice League, following 2018’s Aquaman, another origin film that limited its story to the underwater world of Atlantis. (Even though the Snyder cut released in 2021 was an improvement on Joss Whedon’s zombified version of Justice League, Warners’ stance, according to Snyder, is that the original theatrical release from 2017 is considered canon instead.) As such, The Flash will tie in with a film that came out more than half a decade ago, along with characters and events from movies that stretch back even further still.
Here’s everything else you need to know about The Flash, the inspirations behind it, and what might be in store for the future of the franchise as the controversy caused by Miller persists and the DCEU’s rebirth as the DCU approaches.
The DC Multiverse
Just two weeks after the release of the acclaimed Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, we have another multiverse movie on our hands. Instead of flitting from universe to universe, though, The Flash will depict an alternate reality through its hero’s use of time travel.
In case you’ve forgotten about Barry Allen’s apparently Oscar-worthy ability, the Flash channels the Speed Force, a source of pure energy that allows the hero to run super fast. As the official DC website explains, the Speed Force is also a place: “It’s a plane of existence that speedsters can enter by achieving a high velocity, and which they can use to travel anywhere in space and time.” In The Flash, Barry uses the Speed Force to go back in time to undo the life-defining traumatic event of his past, as he seeks to prevent his mother’s death and exonerate his father, who was wrongfully convicted of her murder.
“I went back in time to save my parents,” Barry says in one of the trailers. “But instead, I completely broke the universe.”
Barry’s manipulation of the past creates a world in which metahumans (people with superpowers) don’t exist. This new Earth is one where Kal-El seemingly never crash-landed as a baby. As a result, he never became Superman, leaving the planet unprotected against apocalyptic threats like General Zod.
In Man of Steel, Zod and his acolytes invaded Earth with the intention of transforming the planet into the new Krypton. To make it habitable for Kryptonians, though, Zod needed to terraform the planet using a device called the World Engine, which would essentially wipe out all existing life on Earth. These colossal machines can be seen in The Flash’s trailers, as well. As Barry tries to undo the damage he’s caused to the universe, he recruits both a younger version of himself and this timeline’s Batman—an older Bruce Wayne played by Michael Keaton, more than 30 years after the actor first donned the cowl in Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989. And though Superman won’t be around this time to break any necks, Barry’s superteam will also include the Kryptonian that this version of Earth received in Superman’s stead: Kara Zor-El (Sasha Calle), otherwise known as Supergirl.
The other major DCEU film that The Flash will connect to is Justice League, which ended with Barry paying his father a visit in prison to let him know that he finally got a job at a crime lab in Central City. (Although Billy Crudup portrayed Henry Allen in Justice League, Ron Livingston plays the part in the new movie.) In The Flash, Barry will occupy this new position as a forensic scientist, and trailers have already revealed a reunion between Barry and Ben Affleck’s Batman. Considering the boundary-breaking possibilities of the multiverse, there’s no telling how many other familiar faces may appear.
The Flash is the first (and also the last) multiversal story in the DCEU, as director Andy Muschietti’s film capitalizes on the latest trend in the superhero genre to tie together films that span decades of DC’s cinematic history. The Flash adds to the already excessive supply of superhero and multiverse movies, but at least it will also offer one more chance to hear Danny Elfman’s iconic Batman theme, thanks to Keaton’s comeback as the Caped Crusader.
Flashpoint and DC’s Upcoming Reboot
The Flash draws from not one, but two iconic DC Comics story lines. The first is a landmark comic from the early 1960s called “Flash of Two Worlds” (The Flash no. 123), written by Gardner Fox and illustrated by Carmine Infantino. The story involved Barry Allen crossing over to the world of the hero who had claimed the title of the Flash before him, Jay Garrick, as two generations of the character came together in the same story for the first time. This development essentially introduced the concept of the multiverse to DC Comics, and the publishing company made it a storytelling staple in the years that followed. “Flash of Two Worlds” also helped pave the way for future story arcs, including a second comic that even more directly influenced the Flash’s new film: 2011’s Flashpoint, written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Andy Kubert.
Flashpoint provides the template for The Flash’s plot, though the film makes many crucial changes to the source material. The comic, which was also faithfully adapted into the 2013 animated film Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, finds Barry waking up in a world with an alternate history. Not only is his mother, Nora, still alive, but also Superman no longer seems to exist, Thomas Wayne became Batman instead of his son Bruce, and Aquaman and Wonder Woman are leading a war between the Atlanteans and Amazons that may bring an end to everything. Barry initially believes that his nemesis, the Reverse-Flash, is to blame for the catastrophic changes to reality, but he soon discovers that his own attempt to change the past and save his mother created unintended ripple effects in the world around him.
Flashpoint is one of the Flash’s most popular story arcs, and it also served a greater purpose for DC Comics by resetting the DC Universe at large. With some help from Barry, DC’s numerous timelines were effectively streamlined into one, simplifying the story for new audiences. After the crossover event concluded, the publisher canceled all existing titles and debuted 52 series in a full-scale relaunch fittingly called The New 52.
The Flash seems to be serving a similar purpose for DC’s film franchise as the DCEU gives way to the new DCU led by Gunn and Peter Safran. In January, when Gunn outlined the duo’s plans for DC Studios, he said that The Flash “resets the entire DC Universe.” A reboot is much needed amid the awkward transition from the DCEU to the new era of DC projects: DC’s most recent films, Black Adam and Shazam 2, were both box office bombs (by superhero standards) that teased future story lines and crossovers that will never be seen. (It may be a long time before many DC fans forgive Gunn for canceling Cavill’s return to the Superman role, but I’m sure they’ll let it slide more quickly if he nails the casting for Superman: Legacy.) Gunn recently announced that the upcoming Blue Beetle will center on the first character in the new DCU, leaving December’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom as the final film in the DCEU era.
As for the fate of the Flash franchise and its star, Gunn and Safran have been noncommittal about whether Miller would be recast for future films. “When the time is right, when they feel they are ready to have the discussion, we’ll all figure out what the best way forward is,” Safran said in January. “But right now, they are completely focused on their recovery.” Andy Muschietti, meanwhile, believes that Miller should retain the role in any potential sequels: “I don’t think there’s anyone that can play that character as well as they did.”
In light of Miller’s history, recasting the role of Barry Allen seems justified, regardless of the quality of the actor’s performance in The Flash or how much money the movie makes. (Warners’ Fantastic Beasts franchise is facing the similar question of what to do with Miller’s character Credence Barebone, after it already recast Johnny Depp’s Grindelwald. DC’s decision should be even easier than that one, given that the DC Universe is already primed for a reset.) But because we’re dealing with Hollywood here, the box office response will likely be a crucial consideration as Gunn and Safran assemble their new roster of stars and superheroes. How they handle the situation may be a sign of what’s in store for DC Studios in the wake of the chaotic DC Films era, so one way or another, The Flash represents an inflection point between timelines for DC.
