Via The Hollywood Reporter the CW has officially picked up the Flash TV series!
DC Comics-inspired The Flash was considered a lock from the minute it was announced last year. From Arrow producers Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg and Geoff Johns, star Grant Gustin (Glee, 90210) earned rave reviews for his role as Barry Allen/The Flash in two Arrow episodes this season.
The pilot also stars…
Candice Patton as Iris West
Central City Police:
Jesse L. Martin as Detective Joe West
Rick Cosnett as Det. “Eddie” Thawne (I’m betting it’s an alias)
Patrick Sabongui as Captain David Singh
S.T.A.R. Labs
Danielle Panabaker as Caitlin Snow
Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon
Tom Cavanagh as Harrison Wells
… and John Wesley Shipp in a mystery role. Hartley Rathaway was mentioned in casting news, but no announcement was made. Whether these two items are connected remains to be seen.
It’ll be great to have the Scarlet Speedster back on the screen. It’s been nearly 10 years Bart Allen (Kyle Gallner) made his first of just three guest spots on Smallville, 10 since Warner Bros. started developing a live-action movie, and more than two decades since the 1990-1991 live-action Flash TV show starring John Wesley Shipp.
The CW also picked up iZombie, an adaptation of the quirky Vertigo horror/comedy series by Chris Roberson and Mike Allred. Gotham was announced earlier this week. There’s going to be a lot of DC/Vertigo joining Arrow on the screen this fall!
Congratulations to everyone involved in the show!
This is great news! I have high hopes for this show!
Constantine also has been picked up by NBC.
I was willing to give this show a 1-2 episode try. It is about The Flash.
But then they just had to go and mention how this show’s existence and comic book’s nu!Not!Wally’s birth are possibly linked. Kind of soured me way more than even the idea of a teen-aged, brunette Barry claiming to be Barry Allen. At least there I could argue with myself that it was just a TV show such as what happened in the 1990’s.
Still, since nu!Not!Wally is a done deal, I guess I can hope this show is a success for the sake of those who will enjoy it.
Good luck, Flash fans. 🙂
I am a more of a Barry Allen/Flash fan,. Than I am a ‘Flash’ fan to begin with. I became a Flash/Barry fan due to his portrayal in the JL:Flashpoint Paradox video. Suffice it to say, I was less than enthused by Gustin’s portrayal of ‘Barry’ in episodes 208&209 of Arrow. I found him too dweeby and clownish, and more akin to a teenage Peter Parker, Than Barry Allen as he has historically been portrayed. I will watch the first episode, but if I don’t like what I see I won’t tune in after that.
Very keen for this show. I started watching Arrow because of Barry’s episodes, and while not perfect, I’m enjoying the series. My personal hope is that the Flash series has more aspects from before the reboot than from the New 52, though.
I’m guessing that it’ll probably be a mix of influences from all of the eras of the Flash like Arrow is.
‘I’m guessing that it’ll probably be a mix of influences from all of the eras of the Flash like Arrow is.’
–Well unless they make a significant change to Barry from how he was portrayed in Arrow. I am guessing that they will make him a nebbishy Peter Parker clone, who struggles to find himself and gain confidence both a person as well as a superhero. He will find a father figure in a mysterious man by the name of Jay Garrick (played by John Wesley Shipp). Who will teach him about his new found powers and teach him how to be a man. Like Peter Parker/Spider-man–Barry will develop a crush on the daughter of his partner Captain Stacey–er I meant Det. West. But of course it will not be returned since this is an American tv show and interacial romances (Scandal excepted) are frowned upon. Instead Barry will immediately be paired with his yet to be introduced co-worker Patty Spivot. This will result in a love triangle between Patty-Barry- Felicity. Very similar to the triangle which occured between Gwen-Peter-Mary Jane. Further except to see many confrontations between Director Singh (similar to JJ Jameson) who gives our young new police scientist a hard time and complains incessantly about The Flash being a public nuisance and interfering with police business.
::facepalm::
It’s funny because most of that is wrong
It’ll be interesting to see which elements they do bring onto the show. I hope they have Felicity from Arrow guest-star in some episodes too. They have a decent love triangle building between Barry, Felicity, and (hopefully) Iris.
But the Flash is back on TV! Hooray!
It has become very clear to me that the new 52 is DC’s sneaky way of shamefully “giving up” in the battle to keep comic books an individual medium. The new versions of our favorite characters have been redesigned with the tv screen and money as the main focus rather than the creativity and attention to character/storytelling that made these heroes into the cultural icons that they are today. Arrow was the first step, and as Green Arrow comics, now featuring characters like Diggle and Ollie’s CW look/personality, slowly fold into the Arrow continuity I profit that within a few short years the comics will have become just shallow spin-offs of the TV Shows & Movies that make the real money. As soon as I heard about CW-Iris being cast as an African American I predicted to my girlfriend that comic book would be affected by it, and now we have all just witnessed exactly that. I for one am a fan of comic books FAR more than I am a fan of Wally West, Barry or The Flash as a whole and so I will not support or have any part of this destruction of the medium. As long as DC’s mission is to make comic books a side note to TV Shows…I’m not sending any of my $$$ their way. I can only hope that when they eventually change comic book Iris to an African American and Barry to a brunette that it happens in a ridiculous manner similar to the one that originally changed Wally’s red suit yellow so the old time fans can get a good laugh. After all, its only colors on a suit, right?
P.S. Before anyone tries to assume that I have some sort of racially insensitive problem with Black characters, I’d like to point out that i have good friends of varying races, genders and sexualities many of whom are comics fans and ALL of whom agree with me that there is a big difference between creating a culturally diverse cast of characters and being such a culturally-isolated pack of money-grubbing nerds that the only way you know how is to slap a new color on an old name.
Yeah, it’d be a shame if the comics started importing elements of the media adaptations, like…Harley Quinn, or Renee Montoya, or Mr. Freeze’s terminally ill wife, or the Hall of Justice…or Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, the Daily Planet and Kryptonite. http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2005/07/21/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-8/
As for your P.S….really?
I don’t think that anyone objects to MINOR outside characters from other mediums being inserted into the comic book. But it is a big difference when they start making significant changes to major characters in the books just to fit the outside medium, or even worse for political correctness.
Ah, like when the producers of the 1960s Batman TV series told DC they wanted to introduce a new female character, so DC completely redid the concept of Batgirl and came up with Barbara Gordon, who debuted in the comics with the intent of appearing on the show.
Feedback from adaptations back into canon is hardly new.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CanonImmigrant
I can’t testify to that. But Batgirl never seemed to me to be a ‘major’ character.
History tends to say otherwise with her being the second or third most popular female superhero in pop-culture.
I’m not a fan of the comics changing to suit other media (though Kelson has a good point about now-classic characters joining comics from other media), but a lot of the time the changes don’t stick for long. Mystique was scaly in the comics for all of 5 minutes, and Toad see-saws between his movie incarnation and previous self all the time (he’s always mutating, it’s kind of his thing).
As for Diggle, he’s pretty awesome and one of the most popular characters on Arrow, so I’m glad to see him in the book.
Seems like appearances will change over time (which is usually the case when it comes to comics to begin with), but when an original character picks up a good following, they tend to stick. If the new Flash show can do that, then that can only be a good thing for Flash’s overall popularity!
This will be great!!
You know what has me facepalming?
We finally get a live-action Flash, and a huge chunk of the conversation here (including the mod queue, which I’m just now getting to) is people upset because Wally, who hasn’t even been confirmed for the show, is black in the comics.
Are you kidding me?
Whoa whoa whoa…let me clarify myself here:
The problem isn’t that New 52 Wally is black, the problem is that New 52 Wally isn’t Wally West and the reason I felt the need to comment on it here is because its a change that was obviously (to me) made in order to tie the comic book to the show. If I’m wrong and African-American NotWally never shows up in the TV show, I’ll eat my own words right here on speedforce.org. No joke, I’ll print out my comments and post a video of me eating the page in cereal. But I’m 100% confident that I’m not.
Also, my beef is not with characters or concepts being adapted from the show to the comics or vice versa. As Kelson pointed out there are tons of CLASSIC characters that originated on TV and as Lia pointed out Diggle is a pretty darn awesome character as well, which brings me to my major gripe with changing Wally’s race…
Let’s all stop pretending it was about political correctness or bringing racial diversity to the comics or telling great stories that couldn’t be told with a white Wally West…push all that PR nonsense aside…and let’s just call it what it really is and admit that it is all about money. Iris West was cast as African-American in the show in order for African-American viewers to have someone to relate to (more viewers = more $$$) and Wally has now been changed so that new, African-American fans of the show can have someone to relate to if they make the transition to the comic (sell more comics, get more $$$). Which is FINE, and makes sense from a business perspective, but if Diggle or Miles Morales Spider-Man or Jon Stewart are proof of anything it’s that it isn’t that hard to make an awesome NEW character for people to identify with rather than lazily changing an old favorite.
Maybe my P.S. (which was meant to be a shot at DC management, not the good people of this website, so I apologize if I offended anyone) was a little too aggressive, but I honestly just have trouble believing that DC Comics, who employ emotionally stunted man-children like Scott Lobdell (recently seen harassing a female comic book creator in front of an entire audience with ribaldrous comments that a 3rd grader would know were inappropriate) are really going to utilize the West family’s newfound blackness to tell any great stories. In that case, the change is a blatant and shameless money-making stunt rather than a genuine creative-decision and I’m just getting tired of trying to be emotionally invested in characters who can suddenly disappear in a poof of $100 bills when that isn’t even in their power-set…if that makes any sense.
Anyway, sorry Nelson for stirring up a ruckus or derailing the discussion. I’ll admit, I was probably a little out of line. Love the site, but maybe I should hold my comments until I can think of somethin nice to say :/
The only live action flash we have ever seen was 90s one season show. I’m stoked and is is huge! It could introduce the flash to a whole new base of fans, and in my opinion give the character what he needs to break through to get a movie! And on the Wally note if this happened to Barry I’d atleast give it a chance! Wally’s not confirmed for the show and he has barely been rolled out in the comic…the backlash to it is ridiculous.