As much as The Flash is being hyped up as the first step on the road to James Gunn’s shiny new DCU, it’s also serving as a kind of victory lap for the old DCEU. As we’ve seen from the trailers, Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen will be joined by a bunch of familiar faces from the SnyderVerse, most notably Ben Affleck’s Bruce Wayne. Nevertheless, Gunn himself has now dropped his own personal take on this that is no doubt destined to get him dragged by DC die-hards.
In the wake of The Flash early reactions sweeping social media, more casual viewers are turning to Gunn to get clarification on if they need a degree in DCEU-ology to follow the Andy Muschietti movie. Gunn’s response? Actually, you don’t need to see a single one of DC’s films from the past decade to understand it. Although familiarity with Tim Burton’s Batman flicks would be a plus.
“You don’t NEED to watch anything,” the new DC Studios Co-CEO stressed in response to one fan, echoing comments he’d said an hour before in another tweet. “It would be good if you know the Keaton Batman exists.”
Rendering an entire 10 years of DC universe-building as totally inconsequential is quite the bold take, and will likely do nothing to endear him to the Zack Snyder loyalists who are already seizing the opportunity to call The Flash “genuinely one of the worst DC movies [they’ve] ever seen.” You’d think at least Man of Steel should be essential viewing, given that Michael Shannon’s General Zod returns as per an alternate timeline version of his invasion of Earth in 2013.
But, hey, Gunn is the man in charge now so he knows best. We can judge for ourselves if The Flash is as standalone as he says when it enters theaters on June 16.
