When looking for a director to replace Rick Famuyiwa in the DC Extended Universe Flash film, Flashpoint, Warner Brothers compiled a list full of big names like Robert Zemeckis, Jordan Peele, Sam Raimi and Matthew Vaughn to take on the job but appear to have settled on something more familiar and comforting to them instead.
Variety is reporting that the writing and directing team Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley are in negotiations to direct the film.
Someone at Warner Brothers and their subsidiary, New Line Cinema, really, really like the pair. The duo’s Horrible Bosses was a big hit for New Line, and the partners also wrote The Incredible Burt Wonderstone and Horrible Bosses 2 for the studio. This led to them to be trusted to co-write and co-direct the 2015 Vacation reboot. Warners must have been impressed by their directing on that film because it tapped them to direct February’s Game Night from a script by Mark Perez.
Goldstein and Daley’s work wasn’t just consigned to New Line. They also co-wrote Sony/Columbia’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 and contributed to the script for Spider-Man: Homecoming, a film they were also on the shortlist to direct. The duo are also part of the writing conglomerate chosen by Hasbro Studios to bring a Hasbro Cinematic Universe to life.
Being known primarily for comedies might give fans pause at this news. But A) there aren’t a lot of yucks to be squeezed from a film where the main character goes back in time to stop his mother’s murder and B) Spider-Man: Homecoming, which Goldstein and Daley provided the story for and were two of the six people who worked on the screenplay, showed a good mix of comic book action and humor. So, consider me cautiously optimistic.
