With The Flash finally ready to hit the ground running, filmmaker Andy Muschietti is weighing in on whether he would want embattled star Ezra Miller involved in a possible sequel to the Warner Bros. superhero feature, according to the report of The Hollywood Reporter.
Muschietti and producing partner Barbara Muschietti sat down for an upcoming episode of podcast The Discourse podcast ahead of the film’s June 16 release. In a preview from the conversation, Andy Muschietti was asked whether he would intend to have Miller reprise the role in any future films that the director might helm for the DC Studios franchise. In The Flash, Miller plays two versions of Barry Allen.
“If [a sequel] happens, yes,” he said about Miller, who uses they/them pronouns, potentially reprising Barry Allen in later projects. “I don’t think there’s anyone that can play that character as well as they did. The other depictions of the character are great, but this particular vision of the character, they just excelled in doing it. And, as you said, the two Barrys — it feels like a character that was made for them.”
Barbara Muschietti similarly expressed her appreciation for Miller’s work on the forthcoming film: “In principal photography, Ezra was brilliant and the most committed and the most professional [actor]. Ezra gave everything for this role — physically, creatively, emotionally. They were absolutely supreme.”
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The release of The Flash is a long time coming, as the title was delayed by COVID and has been the subject of scrutiny surrounding Miller’s personal issues. The performer, who was at the center of several criminal investigations and pleaded guilty in January to trespassing, issued a statement last August saying that they had been seeking treatment for “complex mental health issues.”
As previously reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. already has a script for a Flash sequel that was written by Aquaman screenwriter David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, in case next month’s film is a big hit.
The Flash earned strong reactions when it screened at CinemaCon last month, where Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav heralded it as his all-time favorite superhero movie. In January, three months after news broke about James Gunn and Peter Safran taking over as DC Studios bosses, Gunn said during a conference with members of the media that The Flash is “probably one of the greatest superhero movies ever made.”
Muschietti’s feature is the second of four DC movies coming out this year that were made for DC Films under former head Walter Hamada, following March’s Shazam! Fury of the Gods. (Blue Beetle is slated for an August release, while Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom hits theaters on Christmas.) Gunn told reporters that the stars of all four films could potentially reprise their roles in later DCU projects: “There is nothing that prohibits that from happening.” However, sequels to those films were not announced as plans as part of Gunn and Safran’s upcoming slate.
THR reported last week that The Flash is eyeing an opening weekend in the $70 million range, which would be a soft launch for a tentpole film that has been given an extensive marketing push.
