Having spent so long stuck in development hell since first being announced in October 2014, The Flash has become used to facing a setback or two. Eventual director Andy Muschietti was the fourth person to be awarded the job, while the script has been through just as many revisions, if not more.
In fact, the only constant throughout the entire process has been Ezra Miller, and even then there were rumors he could be dropped after a video of him choking out a fan went viral. Then, when the pieces finally fell into place and the DCEU blockbuster was gearing up for production, the pandemic hit and ground everything to a standstill.
During an interview at DC FanDome China, producer Barbara Muschietti explained just how badly the global health crisis affected The Flash, and what it meant for the movie as a whole.
“We prepared a lot and we were ready to go because we’re really good planners, and then a global pandemic hit, and then all the plans went to the toilet and we had to start again. The first part of the process was truly seeing how we were gonna keep everything together and had no parameters because no one knew what was going to happen. But we were all absolutely excited to make this movie and we all stuck together, Ezra, Andy, I, our team, it basically meant that we had to wait for about six months.
We had more time to prep in a way, got the script to a better place which is always fantastic, and then we started shooting in April. It’s been a non-stop, crazy adventure because COVID doesn’t make things easy. But we’re all so fortunate to be working and healthy. We haven’t shut down the movie, we’ve been extremely lucky. It’s luck. That’s how we prepared it, with a lot of luck. And also, Ezra and Andy together have more energy than any human pair I’ve ever met. They’ve kept us all going basically when things were hard because they are hard in the world we’re living. They just inspired us and kept us going, and we’re almost there at the finish line.”
Michael Keaton even voiced his concerns about traveling to England in the midst of a pandemic, before he was officially confirmed to be returning as Batman for a second time. At long last, shooting on The Flash has finally wrapped, FanDome brought our first look at some footage and it’s all systems go for the post-production team to start hammering the final product into shame for a November 2022 release.