While the plans for Ezra Miller's The Flash movie were reportedly to do a lot of DCEU resetting, that may now be in question due to Warner Bros. Discovery. One of the DCEU films that have been in the works for nearly a decade is The Flash. Announced only a week after Grant Gustin's The Flash TV show debuted on The CW, Warner Bros. unveiled their initial plans for the DCEU, with Miller being tapped as the cinematic iteration of the Scarlet Speedster.
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Even though other DCEU projects have moved forward since the 2014 announcement, The Flash got stuck in development hell while Miller's character appeared in other DC pictures. Several directors and writers boarded and left until Andy Muschietti became the movie's final director and got principal photography rolling, which ended in late 2021. Initially set to release this November, Warner Bros. Discovery pushed The Flash movie back till summer 2023 due to post-production needing extended time to finish the film, which will revolve heavily around the DCEU multiverse.
Despite never being confirmed, The Flash has been rumored to serve as a soft reset for the DCEU potentially. However, that may not be the case anymore due to recent developments with Warner Bros. Discovery. In a new report from Variety, The Flash was slated to "clean up all the narrative threads left dangling" by the DCEU's "stop-and-start approach" to crafting an interconnected universe. But that plot device may not be something that comes to fruition anymore since Miller's movie is no longer the final film from the previous DC regime. Last week it was confirmed that Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is being delayed to Christmas 2023, as it was initially going to be released ahead of The Flash.
In many ways, it would make sense for any reset storylines to be shelved due to recent developments. Initially, Michael Keaton's Batman, who will be re-introduced through The Flash, was set to star in HBO Max's now-canceled Batgirl movie with Leslie Grace. Ben Affleck's iteration of the Dark Knight, slated to appear in the speedster-led film, has participated in reshoots for the Aquaman sequel. This is reportedly to replace Keaton's version of the Caped Crusader since The Flash will be out in theaters before Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.
While exact details haven't emerged on what was filmed, this report could explain why The Flash did reshoots recently with Miller, possibly to alter any ending that does a reboot for the DCEU. Doing any reset for the franchise would damage other films that are on their way, including Blue Beetle, Wonder Woman 3, and Black Canary, which are all set in the DCEU. Since Warner Bros. Discovery has a 10-year plan for the DC brand, many have assumed that it would be the death of the DCEU, which doesn't necessarily need to be the case. With recent reports that Dan Lin may be the new DC Films president, only time will tell what the studio will do with their connected DC movies and how The Flash's storyline plays into that.