The Flash’s Ending Changed Three Times During Production
The newly released Flash Movie has been in development for… quite a long time and has survived several regime changes that have hit the DCEU and Warner Bros. collectively. Around 2017, it was decided that the film would effectively function as… swan song So for the DCEU movies, the general ending should always be a refresher for whoever takes control of the movies at the end. But even the last film, as it is currently in theaters, had a few different twists leading up to one of his last major cameos.
spoilers for The Lightning from this point on.
After saving the multiverse from the chaos he caused, Barry Allen shows up at the courthouse for his father’s hearing and meets with Bruce Wayne. But instead of Ben Affleck, the Bruce he meets is actually George Clooney, who played the character back in 1997 Batman and Robin. According to the Hollywood reporterthat ending wasn’t the only version filmed – in fact, it is third Version of the conclusion of the film, which only began to take shape in January.
After two screenings, the decision was made to deliver a fake after Barry thought he had made things right. Having already brought Keaton back for the main Batman, the filmmakers basically asked themselves, “How many Batmen can we get?” So James Gunn and Peter Safran decided to bring Clooney on board. After watching a mostly finished snippet of The Lightning, The actor agreed and the cameo was shot quickly and within half a day on the Warner premises. WB managed to keep the film a secret by not doing any screen tests at all and quitting just before the actual reveal when the film screened at CinemaCon in April. The press, who attended the screenings in early June, were the first group of people to see Clooney’s cameo, followed by the red carpet premiere days before the film’s release.
As for the other two endings, they basically went something like this. In the original version, Barry would have met with Keaton’s Batman and Supergirl (Sasha Calle) at the courthouse, suggesting he hadn’t quite backed the schedule as he thought. This would have undone her death early in the film, and it was the ending that was tested on screen multiple times. In this second In the version, Supergirl would have been accompanied by Henry Cavill’s Superman and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman (the latter appeared earlier in the film), while Keaton would have filled the role of Batman. In the case of Supergirl, this would have left the door open for Calle’s return (since she solo film had already been scrapped) since the producers didn’t want the audience’s last memory of the character to be of her being killed by General Zod.
However, both endings took place before Gunn and Safran took charge of DC Studios. When these two took over and other plans were made for it DC movies, which gave rise to the ending currently in cinemas. An insider reportedly told THR, “It’s rare to find a film in post-production that faces three different regimes with three different goals. None of them were scrapped out of ill will, just out of other visions.”
That’s quite a lot to set an official ending for a movie, and it doesn’t help that multiple people dictated what and who it got to show. Perhaps these two alternate versions will show up in special features for the home release?
The Lightning is playing in the cinema now.
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