A Flash Movie

I really, really hope they make a Flash movie.  I've been wanting one for years.  For the longest time I couldn't imagine such a movie ever getting made, but then along came Tim Burton's Batman, and after that Spider-man, and then, somehow, they were actually making a movie of The Avengers.  All of these films were insanely popular, and we still don't know when this fad for superhero movies is going to end, and which of our favorite superheroes will hit the screen before it does.

I grew up on DC comics, though I was also a fan of Marvel characters such as The Hulk.  This was back in the 80s, somewhere between the first Superman and Batman films.  Back then, everyone acknowledged that certain characters were harder to translate to the silver screen, and the chances of our seeing films based around these characters was less than likely.  Spider-man was one such character, even though he'd gotten the TV show treatment.  Thor was another.  Imagine trying to pitch a big-budget movie about Thor to a studio back in the mid-80s.  They would have laughed you out of the room.

Back then CGI was still in its infancy, and even the most effects-heavy movies of that decade look primitive by modern standards.  It was hard to imagine anyone getting Spider-man's webs right.  It was hard to imagine the Silver Surfer not looking incredibly corny.  We wanted to see someone try these things, but we weren't hopeful about the final product.

Even back in the 80s, I dreamed that The Flash would somehow get his own film.  In the 80s a successful film seemed more likely for the DC characters, given that Superman 1, 2, and 3 did so well at the box office.  I figured that a Flash film might possibly appear in my lifetime, and this seemed even more possible after I heard about Tim Burton's Batman, which acheived widespread popularity in 1989.  I couldn't help but think that after Superman and Batman, my favorite speedster would finally get his day.

But of course 1989 came and went, as did 1999, and then 2009, and now we're sitting here in the year 2012.  Still no Flash.  And I really couldn't imagine an easier character to translate into the film medium, especially now.  He's got powers that would look fantastic in a movie, he's got an easy origin story to tell, and even though his Rogue's Gallery isn't that great he's still got Professor Zoom, who has managed to be a convincing adversary since the 80s.  I still can't figure out why we haven't seen a Flash movie yet.  Even if the Green Lantern film was an unqualified disaster.  There's just so much potential there.

Lately the talk is that Warner Bros. is going to make a Justice League movie, and this movie will act as a launch pad for stand-alone movies with individual superheroes.  Warner Bros. seems to be saying that they want to do the opposite of what Marvel Studios is doing, but a knee-jerk reaction in the opposite direction is still just a knee-jerk reaction, and reversing Marvel's strategy seems to say they lack a better idea.  I'm not saying the idea couldn't work, just that I'm a bit skeptical.

And I really, really hope that they don't try to introduce The Flash in this Justice League movie.  It would be a hard sell, especially if you put him next to Superman and Batman.  I'm also worried that they'll try to turn him into comic relief.  As a character that many of us grew up with, he deserves much more than that.

With Man of Steel and Iron Man 3 on the horizon, it doesn't seem as if the superhero fad is going to end anytime soon.  After those two films, we can expect Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and - much further off - a Guardians of the Galaxy movie (WTF?).  All of these movies are in various phases of production now.

I only hope Warner Bros. doesn't drop the ball here.  In their hurry to create a competing franchise, one wonders if they won't end up botching some of the DC heroes.  After all, the same studio that brought us Nolan's version of Batman also brought us Batman Forever, and the Green Lantern.  It would be a shame if they offered us an equally inferior version of The Flash, especially since I've been waiting a long, long time to see him race into the local theater.