With all the recent news suggesting a DCU reboot is imminent, a lot of the pressure is potentially being taken off of 2023’s The Flash.
With all the recent news and changes coming for the DCU, the pressure may be off for 2023’s The Flash. DC Studios’ new leadership team of James Gunn and Peter Safran has also come with a collection of cancelation news, most notably the decision to not continue the Superman franchise with Henry Cavill’s Man of Steel (despite his Black Adam cameo). However, the upcoming film starring Ezra Miller as Barry Allen might actually benefit from the DCU doing a much harder reboot than originally presumed.
Throughout The Flash‘s extensive rewrites and reshoots, the prevailing theory has been that Barry Allen would soft-reboot the DC Universe. This would allow Warner Bros. to pick and choose their preferred elements from the universe started by Zack Snyder that worked the best without having to worry about the existing continuity, much like Barry Allen’s timeline reboot in the comics as seen in the Flashpoint storyline which kicked of DC Comics’ New 52 era.
A DCU Reboot Lets The Flash Focus On Its Own Story
If the DCU is indeed headed for a full reboot following the Henry Cavill Superman news and reports that Wonder Woman 3 is no longer in development, The Flash might actually benefit from a decision to have a complete do-over. Assuming that The Flash was intended to soft-reboot the DCU, it can now be a more self-contained feature. Rather than worrying so much about setting up a new status quo for an entire universe, The Flash can now be its own adventure while trimming much of the “fat” that’s only present to build an altered DCU that might not even be happening in favor of a completely new one.
It’s worth noting that The Flash has previously been a part of set-up scenes with no ultimate pay-off. Case in point, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice saw the Flash visiting Batman from the future, setting up future Justice League films from Zack Snyder that will never see the light of day. Barry Allen’s Flash deserves to be his own character instead of being a launchpad for sequels, spin-offs, and reboots (especially if it’s for a version of the DCU that may be ending soon).
The Flash Movie Still Faces Serious Obstacles
Whether the pressure is off to help reboot the DCU or not, it’s worth noting that The Flash still carries obstacles that will likely get in the way of its overall success. Even if the movie is trimmed to be a more self-contained narrative and leaves behind all the potential teases, Ezra Miller is marred by the recent controversies from the last couple of years. Likewise, there’s now an inherent concern that many of the upcoming DC movies set for release won’t be seen as having any stakes now that it’s known that the DCU is likely headed for a hard reboot as opposed to a soft one.
Currently, the idea of a hard DCU reboot isn’t an absolute certainty. However, it definitely seems like things are headed that way given all the recent news. As such, it will undoubtedly have an impact on The Flash, and DC fans will likely know more about the DCU’s future by the time the movie releases in June 2023.
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