Since Warner Bros. first announced plans for The Flash, the movie has passed through the hands of multiple writers and directors. Andy Muschietti, however, eventually agreed to take charge of a version written by Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey scribe Christina Hodson.
Like every other take on the Scarlet Speedster's first big screen solo outing, the Flashpoint comic book is used as the basis for this story. However, it's only a very loose adaptation and Muschietti addressed that decision in a conversation with Entertainment Weekly.
"I can tell you that I read all the iterations," he says. "My pitch was essentially about the emotional core and heart of the movie. I knew I could do a superhero movie with all the traits: scope, size, spectacularity. But probably the most difficult thing was to provide a strong emotional story. And we found it."
Along the way, that meant ditching some familiar elements from the source material. Among the most noteworthy exclusions are Thomas Wayne being Batman (Jeffrey Dean Morgan was long rumoured for the role) and the war between Aquaman and Wonder Woman's respective nations.
"We didn't want to give the audience a literal adaptation of the comic book," Muschietti explains. "I think that's one of the good decisions that we made."
"If you see the movie, you don't know where this is going. And as much as some people would've liked to see that literal adaptation, I think we did the right thing. I think that they will be gratified by seeing that the story takes another direction."
Muschietti's comments do make sense. Still, you could argue that scrapping the younger Barry Allen's role and focusing on only one Flash being lost in time might have opened the door to adapting some of those fan-favourite elements (Cyborg was once set to appear, in fairness, but Ray Fisher declined a cameo).
The Flash is now playing in theaters.
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