DC Artist On Famuyiwa’s “Flashpoint” Plans

“The Flash” film finally released in cinemas this year, a project that had undergone many years of stumbles and reconfiguring before we got what ended up on the screen with the Andy Muschietti-directed movie.

At one time, the film was a very different beast. Recently Jay Oliva, who directed the 2013 animated film “Flashpoint Paradox,” sat down with Inverse and discussed one of those previous versions of “The Flash” live-action film.

Oliva first made his career as a storyboard artist on numerous animated series, including “The Batman,” “Static Shock,” “Ben 10,” “Teen Titans,” “Justice League Unlimited,” and many more.

That led to him moving over to live action, jumping between numerous DC and Marvel projects, including “Man of Steel,” “Wonder Woman,” “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” “Ant-Man,” “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Zack Snyder’s Justice League”.

Back in 2016, he was involved with “The Flash” movie back when Seth Grahame-Smith was linked, which got the film the green light, and then when “The Mandalorian” regular Rick Famuyiwa was attached to direct for several months. From the sounds of it, that version was fairly far along as “the cast was in London. They were building sets” before Famuyiwa exited.

Whilst many pegged Famuyiwa’ “The Flash” incarnation as a direct adaptation of the “Flashpoint” comic, Oliva says instead it was going to be an introductory story leading to sequels culminating in Flashpoint. It would also set up a new big bad for the DCEU:

“Rick’s movie wasn’t the Flashpoint movie. 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.

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.”

In those plans, the eventual “Flashpoint” film would’ve served as a climax of not just the Flash’s movies but the whole DCEU and led to a complete reboot:

“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. Because after ten years, the actors need to go onto something else.”

Famuyiwa was only on the project for a few months, ultimately exiting the movie over creative differences with that version permanently cancelled. As such, the “Aquaman” sequel opening in December will serve as the final feature in the DCEU.

For the full interview with loads more, head over to Inverse.