Director Andy Muschietti Reveals Potential Cameos for ‘The Flash’ That Didn’t Happen, Including Grant Gustin & Lynda Carter – Q&A Interview
As the highly anticipated release of The Flash approaches, we were lucky enough to attend a special event where we were granted a sneak peek at an unfinished version of the film. Despite the lack of final touches, what we saw was nothing short of awesome.
The film centers around Barry Allen (Ezra Miller), who is coming to terms with being a superhero who is part of the Justice League in this latest film. Directed by Andy Muschietti, The Flash takes loose inspiration from the “Flashpoint” comic book arc and sees Miller’s character travel back in time to try and save his mother from being murdered. Along the way, he encounters different universes and various characters from DC’s live-action past.
Following the screening, we had the opportunity to sit down with director Andy Muschietti and producer Barbara Muschietti for a Q&A session. While we can’t reveal many details just yet, one topic of discussion that we can share is the exciting potential for cameos in the film. Fear not, we won’t be giving away any spoilers!
During the Q&A, moderator Grea Drake asked the Muschiettis what characters or moments they couldn’t fit in the film, and Barbara said, “We had a lot more characters that we knew we had to let go because there just wasn’t time.”
Andy said, “The Hall of Fame of great characters and actors that play these characters, there’s so many. The list was endless. We had to choose. We had to pick. Lynda Carter was one of them…Brando and Burgess Meredith, Caesar Romero, all the classics. We grew up watching the series. Our first Batman was Adam West.”
For those who may not be familiar, Carter played Wonder Woman in the 1970s TV series, while Marlon Brando portrayed Jor-El in the 1978 film Superman. Burgess Meredith played Penguin, and Cesar Romero played the Joker in the 1960s Batman TV series.
Since Ezra Miller previously appeared in the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” special on The CW’s The Flash series, I asked Muschietti if they had considered including Grant Gustin’s version of The Flash in the film. Muschietti responded, “Of course, as I said before, the list of cameos…was huge. So obviously, we played with the idea of including DC characters from TV, but we just had to pick.”
In addition to the cameo discussion, Nerdist also spoke with Muschietti during our brief chat. They asked him about how it felt on his first day of shooting compared to the last day after such an extensive 120-day shoot. Muschietti said, “It’s funny because the sense of accomplishment at the end is like, you feel like such a relief. At the beginning, you’re a ball of stress. Of course, it defuses after a few days. Every day is like an accomplishment. Then you relax and just keep going and going. It was a lot of fun.”
During a recent conversation with the Muschiettis, they revealed that the first assembly version of The Flash was an epic four hours long, indicating that a considerable amount of material had to be cut from the final product. However, Andy shared that he was pleased with the finished version. Muschietti said, “I’m definitely more happy with this version than the four-hour version. Just like it’s something that you get excited, and you start improvising with actors, and suddenly you have a scene that has doubled the duration that was timed when they were timing the script.”
Andy went on to explain that the process of editing a film is never easy, especially when the original cut is much longer than the final product. Muschietti said, “But it happens all the time. It was also three hours and a half, and It Two was like five hours. I don’t know. And then you have to face the edit and say, ‘Okay. We need to remove one hour and a half of this movie, and how it’s going to happen?’ At the end of six months, it’s fun. At the beginning, it’s just chaos, and whatever you start doing is wrong seen in hindsight. Because it’s trial and error, and you try a lot of things.”
It’s clear that the filmmaking process is not without its challenges, but it’s inspiring to see that even after many months of hard work, the Muschiettis are still excited about the final result of their labor.
