Seth Grahame-Smith Departs The Flash Movie
In a not quite as quick as a flashdevelopment, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies novelist Seth Grahame-Smith has quit Warner Bros. and DC's The Flash.
The writer and producer, whose credits
include the screenplays for films like Dark Shadows, was announced six months
ago as the man charged with scripting and directing the DC Extended Universe
take on Barry Allen, who will be played by Ezra Miller after his cameo
introduction in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.
The only reason given for Grahame-Smith’sdeparture was those pesky old ‘creative differences’ but given Grahame-Smith’s
strong relationship with Warner Bros. - he's part of the writing team behind
the ongoing Lego Movie universe and is writing and producing Beetlejuice 2 – it’s
likely that they departed on amicable terms.
However, that hasn’t stopped tongues
a-wagging over the current state of the DCEU.
Rumours circulated by Birth. Movies. Death has
Aquaman director James Wan ‘feeling tremendous amounts of trepidation’ directing the movie which he’s been attached to since last summer.
Wan’s reluctance to take on another huge
movie has a lot do with the strenuous experience he had directing Furious 7 –
even outside of having to deal with Paul Walker’s death and the accompanying
production complications, the experience was still a difficult one for the
director.
After all, as /film notes, the stress of
blockbuster filmmaking is one of the reasons Justin Lin stepped away from the
Fast and Furious franchise to allow Wan to step up, and there’s even more
pressure for a film like Aquaman.
However, Wan himself weighed into thecurrent speculation with a series of tweets that seem to suggest all is well
with the project.
But it’s not unusual for big films to lose
directors – Thor: The Dark World went through a couple and Edgar Wright
famously left Ant-Man just before he was about to begin shooting. (The Flash,
by contrast, doesn't have to be on screens until 2018).
What makes moreinteresting is the current state of play within the DCEU. From the outside, itlooks as though Warner Bros. may have adopted a more hands on approach with the
current crop of DC films now that Justice League is in pre-production in
London, in order to stop each production from spiralling out of control.
It’s not entirely clear why they are
clashing with filmmakers other than Zack Snyder but here’s hoping that they can
figure out the best way forward - both Suicide Squad and The Batman look like
safe bets - so that faith can be restored in the DCEU.
