At San Diego Comic Con, DC Comics and Warner Bros. decided to let the mic drop by revealing the entire slate of upcoming DCEU films at the Warner Bros. panel. While just about everything on the list was something that was confirmed or we knew was in the works (Suicide Squad 2, Green Lantern Corps, Wonder Woman 2) the one that comes as a total shock was the reveal that DC is making a Flashpoint movie. This is intriguing not only for the implications of the time altering storyline, but what it means for the DCEU in general.
For those who may not know, Flashpoint was a major DC Comics crossover that featured the Flash changing the past and then returning to a present day that was entirely different from the one he remembered. Bruce Wayne's dad is the one who becomes Batman! Atlantis and Themyscira are at war! Superman has been a prisoner of the government since birth! The event culminated in the entire DC Universe getting rebooted with a new continuity in 2011. The storyline was JUST very loosely adapted for The Flash TV show on The CW, and was also made into an animated movie called Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox.
Judging from the released slate at the panel, it appears like Flashpoint will be the main Flash movie, and won't be coming for a few more years by the looks of it. So, understandably, we have about a billion questions. Is Flashpoint essentially Justice League 2? Who's going to be in it? Why are they doing this so soon? Are they already rebooting the DCEU? Does the DCEU even need a reboot? The list goes on, and it'll likely be a while before DC offers any sort of concrete answers.
Obviously, it's a bit too early to offer anything but pure gut reactions, but this is certainly an interesting development that may speak to where the DCEU is heading. As was mentioned above, Flashpoint was essentially a means to reboot the DC Universe as a fresh jumping on point for readers. By building towards it, it's understandable to think that the DCEU is in for some kind of reboot, though I'm inclined to think this would be a small scale one. Pre-Wonder Woman, maybe this sort of Days of Future Past-style continuity shift would have made a little sense, but still, a reboot at this stage in the game feels fairly extreme. Plus, with Wonder Woman 2 slated for right after, it seems unlikely that some big reboot is in the works.
That being said, I'm totally down for a time travel drama with superheroes. Flashpoint is a cool comic, and it would be really interesting to see Aquaman and Wonder Woman at war or Jeffery Dean Morgan (who played Thomas Wayne in a flashback in Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice) suiting up as Batman. Then again, Flashpoint is also pretty bleak, which was the No. 1 criticism about the DCEU before Wonder Woman came along. True, this will likely not be a 100% faithful adaptation of the comic storyline, but it's sort of hard to avoid when Bruce Wayne gets gunned down in Crime Alley and his mom becomes The Joker.
Hopefully, DC and Warner Bros. offer up some new details about what the plan is soon. Flashpoint can easily be a big team-up movie in the vein of Justice League, and it's likely to be a huge topic of conversation for the next few years. We'll sure as hell be paying close attention to every development, so keep checking in with CinemaBlend and we'll keep you up to date on all new information as soon as it becomes available.
