For a movie that doesn’t come out until 2022, we’ve been getting some downright mad production details for The Flash. Curiously, however, they don’t have anything to do with the title character. Instead, Batman has been stealing his thunder with Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck making unexpected returns as part of a multiverse storyline.
The latest plot scoop, though, concerns the Flash’s arch-nemesis Reverse-Flash, who according to Heroic Hollywood will not be the film’s main villain. That doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t feature in the pic, just that he won’t be the only one causing trouble for Barry Allen and co., nor will he be the most pressing threat they face.
It may seem a little presumptuous to be talking about sequels to a movie that’s still two years from release, but as far as plotting goes, it makes sense that Flash’s arch-nemesis might not be the big bad right away. There’s a well-established precedent for saving the biggest bad for future instalments, after all, be it Joker in The Dark Knight, the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, or Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. If The Flash is successful – and given the current commercial strength of the superhero genre, it’s safe to say it will be – one imagines Reverse-Flash will be written in with a more prominent role in the follow-up.
This seems like the perfect moment to pay respects to those orphaned superhero films who never got a second shot, the lost children of the Hollywood landscape. Remember when Green Lantern teased a follow-up only to bomb its way to an early grave? Bless its foolish heart. Or Tim Blake Nelson’s incomplete transformation at the end of The Incredible Hulk. Nor will we ever see a Justice League 2, though that’s probably a good thing.
The Flash, on the other, hand is unlikely to join the company of financial failures, particularly with such famous friends helping out.