‘The Flash’ collateral damage may have already killed off a dream DC movie that’s been wanted for decades

Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam may have taken plenty of flak for having sequels, spin-offs, and crossovers abandoned in an instant when it under-performed at the box office, but The Flash could be following a similar trajectory already, and it’s on course to make less money to boot.

Of course, it can’t quite be taken at face value when it comes from one person who told another person who then relayed the information on a podcast, but it doesn’t sound outside the realms of possibility, either, and it does make sense when you consider what was on everyone’s minds the second Michael Keaton was announced to be returning as Batman.

The veteran actor’s presence instantly led many to speculate the Batman Beyond movie they’d been dreaming of for decades was finally on the cards, and there was no reason to believe that it wasn’t. After all, Keaton was brought back for what was described as an important role moving forward, even if hopes and dreams took a hit when Batgirl was axed and he was replaced in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

In another example of potentially dangling dreams in front of the fandom and then ripping them away, Kevin Smith has offered on his Fatman Beyond podcast that the son of Michael Uslan – the producer who’s been involved in every live-action Batman movie since 1989 – that if The Flash lived up to expectations at the box office, Batman Beyond had a real chance of moving forward.

Of course, The Flash is in free-fall having only been playing for a matter of days, so it’s probably time to erase all memories that Batman Beyond was even so much as a pipe-dream, otherwise there’s only disappointment on the horizon.