The Flash

Andy Muschietti’s 2023 film took longer to make than it runs. Warner Bros. announced a solo Flash in October 2014 for March 2018. Seth Grahame-Smith joined in 2015 and left in April 2016 over creative differences; Rick Famuyiwa arrived that June and left in October, at odds with the studio; John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein were named in 2018, withdrawing in June 2019. Christina Hodson wrote the script, Muschietti was confirmed in November 2019, and the 138 day shoot ran at Leavesden in 2021. The plastic look is deliberate. Muschietti said just after release that everything is distorted because we are inside Barry’s point of view, and any weirdness was intended. Nothing later corrects it; it returns with every run. The most discussed stretch digitally recreates dead actors. The Nicolas Cage Superman there is a scene nobody shot: Cage says he spent three hours playing a man silently watching a universe end, then saw himself fighting a giant spider he never fought. Ezra Miller plays two Barrys. Box Office Mojo puts the opening weekend at 55 million dollars and the world total at 271.4 million. A good fit if Michael Keaton back in the cowl for the first time since Batman Returns in 1992 is reason enough. Not for you if digitally rebuilt dead actors are a problem.