There wasn’t much that could have saved The Flash, and more nostalgia probably wouldn’t have been the answer given the reception to the horrendous Chronobowl scenes that literally dredged up the dead, but it’s fun to daydream about Danny DeVito‘s Penguin waddling onto the scene to save the day.
Sure, it’s been over 30 years since he brought Oswald Cobblepot to such unforgettable life in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, but you could say the exact same thing about Michael Keaton’s Batman, and he managed to escape from the wreckage fairly unscathed.
Sadly, James Gunn is likely to use The Flash as the DCU’s sole multiversal outlier – or at least maybe he should based on the box office – but DeVito has admitted to Total Film that he’d be open to reprising the role under the right circumstances.
“I would definitely consider doing it, yeah. Batman Returns was a great part, it was operatic. You could just pull out all the stops. There were so many motivating things, so many things churning up inside of him. Being the odd man out – the odd bird out – brought the character out of me. It was an emotional experience for me because I felt it was an opportunity of a lifetime to play Oswald Cobblepot with Tim’s vision and design. Tim is a genius to me.”
What we’d really love to see if DeVito playing It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘s Frank Reynolds playing Tim Burton’s Penguin in James Gunn’s DCU, for the sole reason that it would quite possibly be the greatest thing to ever happen to cinema. Alas, it’s surely not to be, but there’s no harm in dreaming.