Tag Archives: Movie

Speed Reading

Some linkblogging for the weekend.

Berlanti Talks Flash Movie Influences

Greg Berlanti recently spoke to SuperHeroHype about the upcoming Flash movie. Berlanti co-wrote the treatment with Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green, and it appears that Guggenheim and Green are working on the script.

He describes the tone as “somewhere in between GL and Dark Knight,” and goes on to explain how the CSI aspect of Barry Allen’s character is shaping their approach to the film.

It’s actually a little bit darker than when we were working on (‘GL’), because you’re dealing with somebody who is already a crimefighter in a world of those kinds of criminals and that kind of murder and homicide. I find you talk a lot about different films when you’re working on a film, and we spend a lot more time talking about Se7en or The Silence of the Lambs as we construct that part of Barry’s world, then I thought when we got into it. It helps balance a guy in a red suit who runs really fast.

He also talks about the possibility of dealing with alternate dimensions, fitting the sci-fi and crime parts of the concept together, and taking a “visceral and real and cool” approach to the sci-fi aspects, “more in the tone of The Matrix.”

I don’t know…I appreciate that they’re taking the character seriously and not turning it into a comedy, the way it sounded like Warner Bros. wanted to do when they had Shawn Levy and David Dobkin attached…but at the same time, I’m not sure that Se7en and Silence of the Lambs are the best source of inspiration for a character who is, fundamentally, about speed. I guess it’ll depend on how well they manage to balance things. (Assuming, of course, that this version of the film doesn’t go the way of the Goyer, Levy, Dobkin and Mazaeu versions.)

Read the full interview (well, the Flash parts, anyway, since they’re holding the complete interview until October) at SuperHeroHype.

(Hat tip to Andrew Filipe for sending me the link!)

Update: Berlanti also talks to HeroPlex about the films, adding a few notes about the speed element.

The character, like Hal, I think it’s his time. I feel like in this environment we’re in now, our society is moving quicker and quicker. There are all these ways to connect; there’s an element of our society that feels like it’s on speed, for lack of a better word. There’s something very timely about the story of the Flash at this moment, Barry Allen’s story.

(Hat tip to SpeedsterSite for pointing to the second interview!)

Guggenheim: Flash Movie Treatment Finished

Newsarama’s Vaneta Rogers interviews Marc Guggenheim about the Green Lantern and Flash movies. Readers of this blog will no doubt appreciate his first quote:

“We’ve turned in the treatment for Flash.”

Next up: the script. “It’s very much one step at a time for The Flash.”

Since Guggenheim, Greg Berlanti and Michael Green are also working on the story for Green Lantern 2, Rogers asked him about possible Flash sequels. They’re not planning one at this stage, but they are open to it.

Guggenheim will be covering two other speedsters while The Flash is in development. He takes over Justice Society of America with issue #44 (scheduled for October), where he’ll write the original Flash, Jay Garrick. He’s also a consulting producer on Berlanti’s TV show No Ordinary Family, which features a speedster played by Julie Benz (Dexter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and premieres on September 28.

Flash Movie: Back to the Beginning

At Comic-Con International, Geoff Johns wouldn’t say anything more about the in-production Flash movie than “We’re making one.” It turns out that’s because there just isn’t much news to reveal. In an interview with Collider.com, Greg Berlanti mentioned that they’re “just starting the script.”

I guess that answers the question of whether any of Dan Mazeau’s script was still in play.

The bulk of the interview is about Berlanti’s super-hero family drama, No Ordinary Family, which launches on ABC next month, but he touches on the Green Lantern film as well.

Link spotted on the Comic Bloc forums.

GL2 Trio to Write Flash Movie

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Warner Brothers has hired Greg Berlanti, Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim to write treatments for Green Lantern 2…and The Flash! The trio will then write the screenplay for one of the movies.

Surprising no-one who has read any DC comics during the last two years, the movie “will take inspiration from [Geoff] Johns’ recent work and will feature the Barry Allen incarnation of the character.”*

The three writers have all been involved with the Green Lantern film. Greg Berlanti had been rumored as a possible director for The Flash, and of course Marc Guggenheim wrote the “Full Throttle” story for the comic book Flash: The Fastest Man Alive. Interestingly enough, Berlanti and Guggenheim will be bringing another speedster to the screen — the TV screen — in this fall’s No Ordinary Family.

Presumably this means they’ve abandoned the Dan Mazeau script announced last year. It’s hardly the first time the movie has been sent back to the drawing board in the nearly six years since it was first announced.

News found via The Nerdy Bird!

*Yes, I know that’s a picture of Wally West. THR used the cover for The Flash Secret Files in their article, and I figured I would too just because it looks cool.

Flash Movie Nearing Greenlight

The Hollywood Reporter reports on a presentation by Warner Bros. chariman and CEO Barry Meyer to investors. The big news is a release date for the next Sherlock Holmes movie (December 2011), but he also talked about upcoming super-hero movies, saying that the Flash movie is “nearing” a greenlight.

WB has previously said that they intend to make DC’s super-heroes the new “tentpole” movies once the Harry Potter series is over (the last book has been split into two films, with part two coming out in July next year). Green Lantern will arrive in theaters June 17, 2011, and Batman and Superman films are in the works for 2012. Meyer also mentioned Wonder Woman and Aquaman movies in development…and, oddly enough, Mad Magazine characters. (I’m blanking. Maybe a live-action Spy vs. Spy? Could the premise actually sustain a full-length movie?)

The Flash has taken a long, slow road to the silver screen, starting with the David Goyer version announced in 2004. Since then, Warner Bros. has gone darker, lighter, then darker again, dropped Goyer’s script entirely, and run through several directors. The current version of the film is being written by Dan Mazeau from a story treatment by Geoff Johns.