Is this ironic or what: the fastest guy in the whole comic book universe is the slowest one getting to the box office.

Screen Rant has been keeping careful tabs on the (lack of) progress concerning The Flash movie. For those with long memories, the blink-and-you-miss-it exploits of Wally West (aka The Flash) were supposedly going to be freeze-framed on the big screen following the release of the fabled Justice League movie. This would’ve served as the well from which spin-off films like The Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman would be drawn.

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It has been a long time in coming, but it now appears that Warner Bros. has finally decided to make use of their stable of DC Comics characters.

Following the financial and critical success of The Dark Knight Warner Bros. has realized that they are sitting on a gold mine - not only from box office receipts, but also from DVD, television, video games and other sources of revenue.

Last month the company held a strategy meeting in an attempt to figure out what was needed in order for them to match Marvel Comics in the comic book movie stakes, and it would appear that they have finally come up with a plan.

The guys over at Slash Film were at a a recent press junket for The Dark Knight when they caught up with producer Charles Roven, a.k.a. the guy responsible for bringing both the Batman Begins trilogy and the upcoming Flash movie to theaters near you. And he had news to tell.

Warner Bros. seems to be hot under the collar to get a batch of superhero movies out the door. Although the Justice League movie seems to be mired in casting hell and surrounded by rumors of being more like a Teen Titans movie, the studio has apparently locked in directors for movie versions of both The Flash and Green Lantern.

The word is that these are supposed to be spin-offs The Flash is supposed to be a spin-off of the Justice League film, so I can only assume that once they finally get that one cast that they’ll have their leads for one of these two movies.

A couple of days after the announcement that David Goyer is no longer involved in the movie about DC Comics character The Flash comes the news that Shawn Levy is stepping in to direct. The news comes to me from the Hollywood Reporter via Comic Book Resources.

Now on the one hand, that means the movie is far from dead… great news, right? Sorry… no. On the other hand I don’t think it exactly spills rays of sunshine on the project.

Why do I say that? Let’s have a look at the collective resumes of David Goyer (who is out) and Shawn Levy (who is in)…

Talk about a one-two punch.

On the same day come separate announcements stating that David Goyer is no longer writing and directing The Flash and that Joss Whedon is no longer involved with Wonder Woman.

Sucks to be a fan of either one of those now, I’m afraid. I predict development limbo for both of them, if they ever get made. I say that because I really don’t think that the superhero movie genre will be “hot” indefinitely. As a matter of fact this year may be the peak, with three superhero movies being released (Spiderman III, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Ghost Rider).

Sometimes nostalgia is best left in the past.

Have you ever had fond memories of something you watched on TV when you were younger… maybe a live action or cartoon series that you remember being the coolest thing ever? Here’s a little advice: Often it’s better to leave those episodes as sweet memories. The first time I ran into this phenomenon was when channel surfing I came across an episode of Speed Racer, one of the precursors to Anime from back in the 1960’s. When I was a kid I thought that cartoon was simply awesome, but watching it recently just killed it for me since I had no idea at the time how poorly animated and how ridiculous the plots were.

Unfortunately The Flash (just released on DVD) doesn’t even start with memories of having been an awesome show. It suffers from having been produced hot on the heels of the first Tim Burton Batman film, and the producers made the terrible decision to use the ambience of that film for this TV series as well.

For those of you unfamiliar with the character (and there have been multiple incarnations of The Flash), we start with Barry Allen, a forensic scientist for the police force. While in his lab there is a freak bolt of lightning striking him and a rack of various chemicals, the result of which imbues him with super-speed. I haven’t picked up the comic book in a while, but from what I remember the character was never “dark” like Batman. It was more of a take-place-during-the-day kind of comic book.

From a number of unrelated news items last week I had already assumed Goyer was going to helm a movie about DC character “The Flash”, and it’s been confirmed that he’s going to write, produce, and direct. I hope the man isn’t biting off more than he can chew.

I read “The Flash” as a kid, and although his main claim to fame is that he can run really, REALLY fast, it was always a fun comic, and of course great at getting me to run down the street as fast as I could.
Goyer has stated in prior interviews that he would probably use the Wally West version of Flash as opposed to Barry Allen. This does however conflict with the following comment by Goyer:

“I think the character of the Flash, who moves faster than the speed of light, opens itself up to rich cinematic and story ideas.” [emphasis added]