IESB is reporting that Greg Berlanti, co-writer of the Green Lantern film with Marc Guggenheim and creator/executive producer of such TV series as Eli Stone, Brothers & Sisters, and Everwood, is the “leading contender” to direct The Flash. (via SpeedsterSite)
The Flash is being written by Dan Mazeau from a story by Geoff Johns, who is also attached as a producer.
I’m not entirely sure how I missed this when it was posted in June, but check this out:
According to the user who posted it on YouTube:
This is early game footage from the cancelled Flash video game. When our publisher Brash folded we were about 6 months into full production with about a year still to go on the game so please excuse the roughness of how it looks at this stage. A lot of the core elements were just starting to surface and we were all really saddened that the game couldn’t be saved. It was showing much potential. As such we just wanted to share a sample of what the game could have been like. Enjoy!
The Brash/BottleRocket game would have been for XBox 360 and PS3. I’m not much of a gamer myself, but I have to admit that this looks like it would have been really cool!
(Found via Superheroes R Us and Comic Book Movie. There’s a long thread at Topless Robot as well.)
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.
With the success of Batman: Arkham Asylum, Super Punch has a round-up of links to Roger Robinson’s art for BottleRocket’s 2007 Flash video game that never got off the ground. I really like the menu art, and the two sets of storyboards show some interesting design choices, including a mask design reminiscent of Walter West, the “Dark Flash”. (via Comics Alliance)
DC isn’t making it easy for me to take time away from comics news/discussion this month.
So, you’ve probably heard by now that Warner Bros. is restructuring DC Comics, making it part of a new WB company, DC Entertainment. The announcement mentions several movies currently in production, but says nothing about anything in earlier stages, such as the Flash movie.
However, an article at Deadline Hollywood by Nikki Finke mentioned some movies in the pipeline:
Robinov for months has quietly gone to producers like Chuck Roven and Joel Silver and Akiva Goldman and “called back” all their high profile DC titles in development like The Flash and Wonder Woman.
This made me wonder: what does this mean for the Flash movie? It was only 2 months ago that Warner Bros. announced Geoff Johns had written a story and would be producing. Has it been put on hold again? Has this version been dropped the way the David Goyer story was? What exactly does “called back” mean in this context?
Then I looked back at July’s announcement and saw this:
This past fall, Warners quietly hired three of DC’s biggest writers — Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison and Marv Wolfman — to act as consultants and writers for its superhero line of movies. The move involved taking back the reins on projects being handled by such producers as Charles Roven (”The Flash”) and Akiva Goldsman (”Teen Titans”). [emphasis added]
Aha! Now add in the fact that Jeff Robinov was heavily involved in the big DC/Warner Bros. summit last year that led to July’s announcement, and it looks like the current Flash production is the result of the same process that has been building up to the restructuring.
So until we hear otherwise, we can assume that the Geoff Johns/Dan Mazeau version of the movie is still in development.
The Hollywood Reporter has a run-down of upcoming DC movie adaptations.
This past fall, Warners quietly hired three of DC’s biggest writers — Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison and Marv Wolfman — to act as consultants and writers for its superhero line of movies. The move involved taking back the reins on projects being handled by such producers as Charles Roven (“The Flash”) and Akiva Goldsman (“Teen Titans”).
Hmm, remember how Grant Morrison couldn’t talk about a Flash movie? It goes on:
The moves have begun to pay off. Johns worked up a new treatment for a “Flash” script, being written by Dan Mazeau; Johns will act in a producer capacity on the project, which has not attached a director.
We’d heard rumors about the Dan Mazeau script before, but nothing official.
But a Geoff Johns story treatment — and producer credit? That should make a lot of Flash fans happy. Not only does Johns have a well-regarded and successful run on The Flash from the first half of this decade, he also has the high-profile Flash: Rebirth.
I wonder if we were all looking in the wrong direction. Maybe this is the Flash news that Geoff Johns was hinting at last week.
I wonder if this counts as a Cue Cullen moment?
(via Newsarama by way of @onceuponageek. More discussion at Major Spoilers, CBR, Slashfilm, Screen Rant, and MTV Splash Page.)