Speed Force

Producer Charles Roven tells IGN that he’s off the long-delayed Flash movie…but we knew that already. Sites such as G4, Screen Rant, Mania, First Showing and MTV seem to think this means Warner Bros. has halted development…but I’ve been following news on this movie since it was announced 5 years ago, and I don’t think that’s the case.

Let’s look at Roven told IGN:

“I was involved at one point with The Flash,” said Roven. “And 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. Do you mind if we try that?’ If we had something that was really working…”

He doesn’t say when the project was pulled back from him, or at least IGN doesn’t tell us.

And we knew a month ago that Roven had been taken off the project, when Warner Bros. announced the formation of DC Entertainment. Jeff Robinov, the architect behind last year’s Waner Bros/DC movie summit, was the one who “called [it] back” — and it was as a result of that summit that Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison and Marv Wolfman were brought in to help Warner Bros. develop DC characters for film.

I think we’re just finally hearing Charles Roven’s side of a change that happened months ago and paved the way for the Geoff Johns version of the film that DC announced in July.

Update: Screenwriter Dan Mazeau contacted IGN with a status update:

The Flash has not been hobbled. Everything is moving forward as planned….I’m still writing the script. Geoff Johns is still consulting. Flash fans have no cause for concern, and — IMO — lots to be excited about.

So, yeah, nothing new here.