The Flash movie is taking a long time to get made, but it looks like the film is getting closer to happening now. Sources told Variety that Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Back to the Future) and Matthew Vaughn (Snatch, Kingsman) are the “top choices” at Warner Bros. to direct.
Offers have not been made to either of them, however, and other, unnamed directors are also in the mix, the report said.
Scheduling could be an issue for Zemeckis and Vaughn. Zemeckis is making a movie with Steve Carell that will start shooting in August, and Warner Bros. reportedly has a mandate that The Flash film enters production before the year is out. Vaughn, meanwhile, is reportedly getting started on a third Kingsman film. Variety reports that he might use his meeting with Warner Bros. about The Flash movie as leverage in his discussions with Fox about making another Kingsman film.
The Flash has already lost two directors. In November, it was announced that director Rick Famuyiwa had quit the movie over over “creative differences” with Warner Bros. Famuyiwa had been hired in June, replacing Seth Grahame-Smith, who exited a month earlier.
According to a January 2017 report, Warner Bros. brought on King Arthur writer Joby Harold to completely re-write The Flash.
In a recent interview, star Ezra Miller admitted that from the outside, losing two directors within a few months of each other did make it seem like the film was in trouble.
“These processes are complicated, and I think it can–from afar–appear to be something interpersonal or dramatic,” he said. “These are groups of people taking the development of projects extremely seriously, and the teams are changing all the time. There’s often a lot of flux in who the team of the production of a film is before that production starts, and in this case, you hear about it, because it’s a critical figure–the directors that have been coming on and leaving. For me, it’s sort of a tragic relay race.”
Miller also had small roles as the character in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad. He’ll also play The Flash in this year’s Justice League.