Flash…the Movie

Okay, there’s word that DC/WB are getting their shit together and working on making Flash their next big movie.

On the surface, this is scary news. But upon further examination, this makes perfect sense. Here’s why:

1) The Big Three have had more than their fair share of chances at the big screen. The only reason Wonder Woman was never made is because nobody involved had the cajones to take that risk. Everyone thought it would never work. (People said the same thing about Thor, but we’ll let that slide…) My point is that if DC ever wants to make it out of the gate, they must look beyond their holy trinity. This brings me to…

2) Green Lantern was a decent attempt; it was the execution that failed. There was too much stuff and not enough direction so the film wound up all over the place. The people behind Flash would learn from GL’s mistakes and work towards a cleaner, crisper script with better pacing and ease the heavier stuff in through sequels.

3) Lest we forget…Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman may have come first, but it was Flash that brought forth the Silver Age of comics…single-handedly I might add. Thanks to Showcase #4, we got Earths -1, -2, -3,-4, -5 (etc…). So it makes perfect sense that a Flash movie could put DC/WB back on the cinematic landscape.

So what they need now…is a script…

(Now keep in mind, all I truly know of Flash comes from the various cartoons and television episodes I’ve watched, and the occasional comic book I’ve read - which can help since one of the points of a project like this is to (re)introduce the character to a large(r) audience so here goes…)

First, break down the story into three acts (what I call the Mank method) and in simplest terms they are: 1) Flash gets his powers, 2) Flash learns about his powers, 3) Flash uses his powers.

That’s it. How the story develops from there is entirely due to which version of the Flash you go with.

There’s always talk about “the love interest”, “the setting” and “the villain(s)” in films like this, and things can get very confusing and sloppy very fast *Spider-Man 3* but again they are completely dependent upon which Flash is used.

So in the end, everything rides on which f**king version of The Flash is used!!!

Thus the debate begins…

I’d LOVE to see Wally, because he’s my favorite, but truthfully…it should be Barry because his story would make the best movie.

As a police scientist, he’d have the easiest means to study the effects of his powers, how they work, and the physics behind them. It would also explain his continual vanishing acts (because really – how much attention are given to those guys in all of those forensics television shows?)

He’s also got a potential girlfriend in Iris. Will they get together/married or won’t they? One of the big problems I had with Fantastic Four 2 was that it started with Sue and Reed’s wedding right away…little too rushed for me. It would be better if Barry and Iris’ courtship ran through both the first and (potentially) second films, and their wedding take place in the third. In fact, having Iris learn Barry’s secret at the end of movie #2 would be a great cliffhanger.

Then there’s “the threat”. What happens in the third act of film #1 to make Flash don his newly developed suit and make his grand entrance? (By the way…the Flash ring doesn’t appear until film #2.) Gorilla Grodd is too “out there” for the average moviegoer. It may have worked if it wasn’t for that Planet of the Apes remake. Captain Cold? Trickster? They’d be seen as the “Batman villain knock-offs” they are. Captain Boomerang? Yeah – there’s a reason why Hawkeye is being introduced in The Avengers and not in his own film. Weather Wizard is a possibility, but I’ll come back to him in a minute. Of all the Flash villains (that I know of) there are two frontrunners: Mirror Master and Professor Zoom.

Mirror Master would work because there are a lot of visuals that could be used with his powers. Mirror imaging, reflection and all that. There’s also the scientific angle between him and Barry (get it?...reflection?...scientific angle?...hello?)

Professor Zoom would also work because there would be similar visual effects for both him and Flash. The story here would be about how two people with basically the same powers use them in completely different ways. The point being - it’s the man that makes the hero, not the powers.

As for Weather Wizard, he would be more “behind the scenes” like Mandarin has been in the Iron Man films. In the first movie, Flash would use his powers to save “the city” (Central, not Keystone) from a natural disaster – a freak storm or earthquake or volcano – that has never happened there before. The point here is that Flash would have to be everywhere at once, saving lots of people (including Iris) from various crises (get it?). Which he does, and that puts him in the public eye. It’s only at the very end of the film that viewers learn the Weather Wizard was behind the disaster, and we learn about him in film #2.

In film #3, Iris (who by now knows Barry’s secret and may or may not have told him she knows) gets a visit from her nephew Wally. He stays with his aunt and her live-in fiancée and attends their wedding. Then “something happens”, Barry disappears, and Wally winds up in an accident identical to Barry’s in film #1 and gets similar powers. This sets up film #4, in which Iris…now a widow…helps train Wally as the “New” Flash.

Now, these are just rough ideas that I’m jotting down on the fly. I have no experience with movie writing and very little knowledge of the DC universe and Flash. My point is that a Flash movie could be done, and more importantly could be done well if the right minds are behind it and enough care and attention are brought to the table.

So we’ll see. I’m all for a thriving DC/WB movie universe, that way they can keep Marvel Studios on their toes, who in turn raise the bar for DC/WB to meet. In the end, we all get the fantastic super-hero movie franchises we’ve been craving forever for.

Verisimilitude and “Nuff Said!