Among doomed Hollywood projects of the modern vintage, few have a more aggressive, going-places sense of being cursed than Ezra Miller’s frequently-bailed-on Flash movie. After all, there’s nothing explicitly wrong with the Flash, or Miller’s take on him; the actor’s performance is generally held up as one of the better parts of the rapidly-fading-from-memory Justice League, and the character has had a long and robust history on TV.
Nevertheless, directors have dropped off of this project like flies over the years, as Warner Bros. has continually struggled in its efforts to figure out what it wants out of its various superhero franchises. (Besides “make Aquaman levels of cash,” of course.) In fact, here’s a quick list of everyone who’s decided that they have better things to do with their lives than direct this particular superhero blockbuster:
- Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (originally set to write the screenplay, rumored to be courted to direct)
- Seth Grahame-Smith (attached)
- Rick Famuyiwa (attached, left over “creative differences”)
- Robert Zemeckis (only a short-listed rumor)
- Lord and Miller again (never confirmed)
- John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (officially attached back in 2018)
Really, an amazing run of people not making a movie, one that’s now set to be joined by another rising star in the industry: It director Andy Muschietti, who has reportedly now confirmed that he’ll taken on the directing role. This is per Fandango, which asked Muschietti about rumors that he was in talks for the film, a question he referred to with an unambiguous (but possibly presumptuous) “Yup.” He also noted that he has no interest in injecting an element of horror into the superhero movie, presumably because he’s not making the move into superhero movies because he wants to be telling stories about deranged murder clowns all the time.
Anyway, Muschietti is currently floating high on the strength of It and the building hype for its sequel; we’re incredibly excited to see what he does with with Flash, and what latest twists and turns the story will take before the film inevitably crashes and burns yet again.