Update: May 16, 2017
Matthew Vaughn, Robert Zemeckis, Sam Raimi Frontrunners to Direct THE FLASH
Warner Bros.’s big-screen take on
The Flash has narrowed down it's search to three directors: Matthew Vaughn, Robert Zemeckis and Sam Raimi have all met in recent weeks and are each strong contenders for the gig.
The trio of directors emerge as Warners is in the final throes of its search for a filmmaker to tackle the Scarlet Speedster after losing Rick Famuyiwa, who made Sundance sensation
Dope, in October 2016 over "creative differences.”
Those differences emerged even as casting was ramping up and his departure put
Flash on the skids, temporarily shelving production and a release date.
Famuyiwa was the second departure after Seth Grahame-Smith, who had written the script and was slated to make his directorial debut.
The recent search for a
Flash director was a closely guarded affair and each of the names rose and fell on studio's heat index even as each had challenges, schedule or otherwise, to overcome. Even Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were re-considered to possibly return to a project for which they wrote a treatment years ago.
The current frontrunner appears to be
Back to the Future and
Forrest Gump director Zemeckis. He is now focused on a new project, an untitled drama that will star Steve Carell and that will shoot this fall and that appeared to sideline him from the gig. But now some sources say that Warners is willing to wait for him. Zemeckis last directed Brad Pitt in the WWII spy drama
Allied.
Jon Berg and Geoff Johns are producing
Flash, which is working with a new draft by Joby Harold, writer on the studio’s
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.
Vaughn, the filmmaker already deeply experienced in comic book movies with films such as
X-Men: First Class and
Kingsman: The Secret Service andcounts
Kick-Ass in his comic book movie repertoire, is readying his latest film,
Kingsman: The Golden Circle, for a Sept. 22 release.
Raimi spent the better part of the 2000s working on Columbia's
Spider-Man trilogy, which starred Maguire as the Marvel Comics hero along with Kirsten Dunst and James Franco. The second movie, which featured Alfred Molina as villain Dr. Octopus, is considered a landmark in the comic book movie form. The trilogy grossed almost $2.7 billion dollars. The last movie Raimi directed was
Oz the Great and Powerful, the 2013 Disney movie that acted as a prequel to
Wizard of Oz.
Matthew Vaughn, Robert Zemeckis and Sam Raimi on the Shortlist to Direct 'The Flash'