The Flash has been a long time coming. The Justice League spin-off, which sees Ezra Miller reprise the role of the titular superhero, was first announced back in 2014 and was initially set to release alongside Batman v Superman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman – but that never happened due to director dropouts, the COVID-19 pandemic, and controversies surrounding Miller's behavior off-set.
On Tuesday, January 31, however, new DC Studios chairmen James Gunn and Peter Safran confirmed that the flick, helmed by IT's Andy Muschietti, will release on June 16, 2023. Not only that, but Gunn also hyped it up as being "one of the greatest superhero movies ever made", and said it will officially spark the franchise's new direction.
He continued (via Collider): "So, how can we take these things together and make them make sense and have them unified and have it one real universe? I think that we've gotten lucky with the next four movies, frankly, because we have Shazam, which leads into Flash, which resets everything which then goes into Blue Beetle, which is totally disconnected.
"But the one thing that we can promise is that everything from our first project forward, will be canon, and will be connected. We're using some actors from the past, we're not using other actors from the past. But everything from that moment forward will be connected and consistent."
Addressing Miller's future within the DCU, Safran added: "These [next] four movies are terrific. There's no reason why any of the characters and the actors playing those characters are not part of the DCU. There's nothing that prohibits that from happening."
For more, check out what else DC Studios has in store for us over the next few years, like an Amanda Waller TV series, a Supergirl movie, and a new Superman: Legacy movie, and separate DC Elseworlds titles such as The Batman 2.
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I am an Entertainment Writer here at 12DOVE, covering all things TV and film across our Total Film and SFX sections. Elsewhere, my words have been published by the likes of Digital Spy, SciFiNow, PinkNews, FANDOM, Radio Times, and Total Film magazine.