Status Report on The Flash
Tue, October 6, 2009 
One of the more interesting aspects of Warner Brothers forming DC Entertainment was the decision to take properties away from their perspective producers and back to the Burbank studios fulltime. That basically meant that Joel Silver (who had long been developing Wonder Woman) was shown the door.
Another example comes from producer Chuck Roven who had been working on The Flash to no success as he explains the situation to IGN:
“Warner Bros. came to me and said, 'The work that you've been doing hasn't yet resulted in something that any of us, including the filmmaking team, feel could be greenlit as a movie. We're trying to accomplish something that takes into account the entire, rich DC character world, and we'd like to pull it back. That doesn't mean that you aren't going to be a part of it. We just want to take a different kind of approach.”
I wasn’t expecting Roven to be given this treatment considering he also produced “those Batman movies” with Christopher Nolan. You might remember the last installment. It’s the one that made $1 billion. Yeah, that one.
This recent move continues the ever going roller-coaster of decision making over at Warner Brothers. A previous incarnation of The Flash was to be directed by David Goyer based on an original screenplay of his. Roven alludes to that version in the article. You know why they pulled the plug? It (along with Joss Whedon’s ill-fated time on Wonder Woman) was deemed “too dark” after both Batman Begins and Superman Returns proved to be box-office under-performers for the studio. So their mentality changed to “Let’s make everything light!”
And then came the Summer 2008 film lineup where Speed Racer (which was bubble-gum light) bombed and The Dark Knight was a commercial phenomenon. The wording changed yet again - this time to “Let’s make everything dark!” Of course, that won’t last either – especially after the darker-themed Watchmen and Terminator: Salvation tanked domestically.
Reader Comments (4)
Perhaps now they will realize that the success of a movie isn't dictated by the fucking brightness of the movie. It requires a good script. And a director with a fucking clue. Leave the characters in their respective lighting and make a movie that accentuates what each property brings to the fold. Don't try to shoehorn Wonder Woman or Superman or Flash into Batman's shoes because thems be mighty dark shoes and those fuckers are "one size fits Batman" only.
Does the Geoff Johns writes everything scenario mean the movie is essentially go no matter what? Even if the WB doesn't actually like the script?
How is this roller coaster decision making? They grew some balls took Roven off because he didn't do a damn thing with the franchise and same goes for Silver. They both essentially gave up after their writers turned in a draft and were rejected. Thank goodness FLASH is being written by Dan and CONSULTED(NOT WRITTEN) with Geoff Johns. Now we'll be actually getting some thing out of this.
Wally West! Wally West! Wally West!