Warner Brothers certainly has a hit on their hands with the WB TV series The Flash, adapting the superfast superhero from DC Comics. As a spinoff off from the popular Green Arrow adaption Arrow and with another superhero show on the show, the CW is building up its own interconnected comic book universe the way Marvel Studios has done in the movies and how Warner hopes to also leverage their DC Comics characters in film.
The problem, ironically, with Warners’ cinematic plans is that the TV versions of the heroes, and by extension the actors playing them, will not be carried over to the studio’s film universe. This has upset some sectors of fandom who are enjoying Grant Gustnin’s take on the superhero question the wisdom of keeping the TV and film incarnations separate rather than allowing crossover between the two mediums, a la Marvel’s films and the Agents Of SHIELD, Agent Carter and the upcoming five series from Netflix being kicked off with Daredevil later this week.
Warners seem to have that in mind and appear to be looking very much at attempting to capture lightening in a bottle – Flash pun very much intended – again.
This weekend on SchmoesKnows Meet The Movie Press video podcast, The Wrap’s Jeff Sneider indiacted just that when he revealed that the studio is working at trying to land The Lego Movie directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller for the director chairs of the big screen version of The Flash that the studio announced last October.
We’ve just heard a bit of a tug of war going on between Warner Bros. and Sony, which would like the same two directors for one of its big franchise movies … If maybe Warner Bros. wanted them for The Flash and Sony wanted them for a Ghostbusters movie, which would Lord and Miller do?
Lord and Miller certainly have their plate full of genre related films to right now. Sony had approached the pair about directing a Ghostbusters film, back when it looked like it might be a third film in the original series. After they passed, director Paul Feig gave the studio his pitch for a female-fronted reboot of the franchise that is now currently shooting. That the studio is still interested in them in contributing to the franchise speaks to the seriousness of their plans to use Feig’s 2016 film as a launching point for a series of interconnected films. With the studio already eyeing their first Ghostbusters followup for 2017, possibly starring Channing Tatum and Captain America: The Winter Soldier co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo behind the camera, I have to wonder if Sony is looking for a Lord and Miller Ghostbusters film for 2018. Warners has already announced a March 23, 2018 date for The Flash, so it looks as if the timing is a bit too close for them to tackle both. Although, if Sony were amenable to pushing back their hoped-for Ghostbuster film a year, there would be time for both.
The pair are already producing a big screen adaptation of the 80s superhero comedy The Greatest American Hero. Wile they are not directing the Lego Movie sequel, they are writing and producing it along with the Lego-related Ninjago and The Lego Batman Movie.
