WIth A Flash, Robert Zemeckis, Matthew Vaughn & Sam Raimi Are Being Eyed To Direct The Flash

After waiting not hearing much news Warner Bros search for a new director for The Flash, three come along within basically an hour of each other.

It was first rumour a few weeks about by ScreenJunkies News that iconic Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis was “in talks” with WB about the vacant franchise chair, but that was debunked by a number of film journalism to saying they had meetings.

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Yesterday (16^th March 2017), The Wrap revealed Zemeckis is, in fact, the studio’s frontrunner to helm The Flash.  Meanwhile, Variety updated the story 25 minutes later to add not only was the Forrest Gump director in the running, but he was joined by Kingsman helmer Matthew Vaughn.

Variety added Vaughn and Zemeckis have their own issues to overcome, but they’re leading candidates to get the gig even though there were other still in the mix.

They weren’t kidding because 30 minutes after the Variety story broke, The Hollywood Reporter added a third name to the mix – Sam Raimi.

IMAGE VIA THR/ GETTY IMAGES

THR also revealed WB were even looking at bringing back Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who wrote the treatment a few years ago. However, they’ll be too busy with their Han Solo film for Disney/Lucasfilm.

Zemeckis is seemingly the top choice, but he’s currently involved with an untitled drama starring Steve Carell and it set to start filming this Autumn. However, Warners is willing to wait to get their man.

Meanwhile, if they can’t get him then having back-ups like Vaughn and Raimi isn’t too bad. The issue with Vaughn, who’s also been looked at to direct Man of Steel 2, is he’ll be releasing his latest film, Kingsman: The Golden Circle (sequel to Kingsman: The Secret Service) and could be using The Flash to force Fox’s hand to give him a third Kingsman film.

If Variety is right and the studio has a mandate to get The Flash off the ground this year, the only man available is Raimi.

Raimi would be very familiar in the comic book world due to this experience working on the original Spider-Man films starring Tobey Maguire as the classic Marvel hero alongside Kristen Dunst and James Franco.

After the departures of Seth Grahame-Smith and Rick Famuyiwa, Warner Bros HAS to get this third choice right and stick with it. Going for a big name director and letting them has some control with the project is a must to let fans have some faith in this property.

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Jon Berg and Geoff Johns will be producing from a page one rewrite by King Arthur: Legend of the Sword screenwriter Joby Harold.

Now, the whole getting this film of the ground by this year is interesting because if that’s the case it’ll have to be sometime this November/December due to Ezra Miller’s commitments to Fantastic Beasts 2. Which is supposed to start filming this Autumn, but I can’t see him being a major character and I think we could see the new director at San Diego Comic Con.

Personally, any one of these directors would be a great choice because they’d bring something different. Zemeckis would bring all that Back to the Future/ family sci-fi flavour to the film. Vaughn the humour and just overall popcorn action fun and Raimi could do something interesting.

Whoever comes on board they’ll have Miller as Barry Allen/The Flash, Kiersey Clemons will play love interest Iris West and Billy Crudup is playing Barry’s dad Henry.

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