A Major Flash Villain Was Going To Be The DCEU's Thanos, And Then Things Went Wrong
Warner Bros. is preparing to move away from what we once knew as the DCEU, which kicked off with Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel" a decade ago. That whole endeavor was messy, but WB was originally all-in on the filmmaker's plans. One film that got dragged through the mud the whole way through was "The Flash," which finally hit theaters this summer with disastrous financial results. However, a previous incarnation of the project could have introduced a different Thanos-level threat to the DCEU.
Storyboard artist Jay Oliva, who worked on several DC movies including "Wonder Woman," Ben Affleck's scrapped version of "The Batman," and yes, "The Flash," recently spoke with the folks at Inverse in honor of the tenth anniversary of the animated movie "Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox." During the conversation, the filmmaker discussed the various incarnations of the live-action film through the years, including Rick Famuyiwa's plans for the material from 2016.
"Rick's movie wasn't the Flashpoint movie," Oliva explained to the outlet. "Originally, there was supposed to be just Zack's five films and one side movie, which ended up being 'Suicide Squad' ... Rick's movie was going to be a series of films, just like 'Aquaman.' I think all of those films, they were planning to be trilogies." But Oliva's further elaboration is where things get really interesting, because Eobard Thawne, aka Reverse Flash, aka Zoom, was in the mix in a big way.
"Rick's movie was laying the groundwork for Zoom as the big baddy of the DC Universe. It was Professor Zoom pulling the strings because he had come from the future to basically f*** with Barry. In the Flash movies, Zoom would be the villain in the background. But also in the ancillary other films, you would see some of the influences of Zoom on the rest of the Justice League."
Another big villain alongside Darkseid
For those who may not be familiar, Reverse Flash/Zoom is a Speedster from the far future who has learned to manipulate time using the Speed Force in a way well beyond Barry Allen's abilities. It sounds like Famuyiwa was laying some major groundwork for Zoom as a long-haul villain, with "Flashpoint" being a huge event movie for the DCEU much in the same way that "Avengers: Infinity War" was the culmination of a lot of teasing in regards to Thanos for a handful of years.
Snyder's five-movie arc would have included "Man of Steel," "Batman v Superman," and a "Justice League" trilogy. But around the time "Man of Steel" came out, Marvel was hitting it out of the park with its cinematic universe, so WB expanded plans around what Snyder was doing. "The Flash" got caught up in all of those ever-changing plans.
The idea that Barry Allen's arch-nemesis would be a big baddie in this universe right alongside what Snyder was doing with Darkseid is almost dizzying to consider. Oliva expanded upon what this all might have looked like:
"At the ending of Zack's Darkseid quadrilogy, or whatever, we would end up with a Justice League Unlimited version of the Snyder-verse. And then you flip it. You do Flashpoint Paradox. Everybody who's friends are now enemies, and it's a world that you don't want to live in. You can reboot the universe and introduce a new cast that way."
Reverse Flash has been a big part of the comics since he was introduced in 1963, and viewers of The CW's "The Flash" TV show are familiar with the character as well, as he was a recurring villain. Maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe WB wanted to avoid double-dipping as much as possible. Either way, slot this firmly in the realm of what could have been, rather than what will be.