The CW Has Made A Decision On Grant Gustin And The Flash
The CW network has come to a decision about the Grant Gustin-starring Flash television show, and it will affect the whole Arrowverse.
This article is more than 2 years old
The fate of The Flash has been up in the air for a while now. As the CW show closed out its eighth season, it had matched the longevity of the original CW DC Comics show, Arrow. That made it a little questionable whether the network would push it into another, particularly after word leaked that star Grant Gustin was doing some new contract negotiating. Happily for Arrowverse fans, the CW has officially renewed the adventures of Barry Allen, Reverse-Flash, and all the rest for a ninth season. They also renewed a whole slew of other shows, including fellow superhero show Superman & Lois, Twin Peaks/Gossip Girl mashup Riverdale, and the Jared Padalecki-starring Walker. After all, the CW is never letting their hooks completely out of those Supernatural boys.
Grant Gustin has starred as Barry Allen in The Flash since 2013; the character was first introduced in an episode of Arrow, at the time the flagship show of the Greg Bersanti wave of DC Comics adaptations. The Flash received his own show in 2014, and now that Arrow has been put to rest (and star Stephen Amell has a new pro-wrestling drama on Starz, Heels), it became the central show of the Arrowverse. While The CW iteration of various DC Comics characters is not at quite the same level of the Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson version of The Batman or James Gunn’s Peacemaker, it has a dedicated following. As such, there are now five currently running CW Arrowverse shows, including The Flash, Batwoman, Black Lightning, Superman & Lois, and Legends of Tomorrow. The CW shows have also proven themselves to be quite adept at crossover events between the shows, which is something the rest of the DCEU seems to be struggling a bit with.
While the Grant Gustin version of Barry Allen/The Flash is seemingly safe for at least one more season on The CW, he is not the only one out there. Ezra Miller has played another version of the same character since 2016, first as a cameo in Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and then as a lead character in the two iterations of Justice League that have been released. Grant Gustin-Flash and Ezra Miller-Flash actually met in the CW event Crisis on Infinite Earths, marking the first time the Warner Bros proper DCEU crossed over with the Arrowverse. Ezra Miller’s own solo Flash movie has been in production since 2020 and has had its release date re-scheduled a number of times. Given that it is apparently going to be Ben Affleck’s last time portraying Batman, at least one person is probably very eager for it to be released.
Grant Gustin will presumably be returning as The Flash sometime in late 2022, likely for the autumn television season. In the meantime, The CW is working on expanding their offerings of DC adaptations, with the announced Gotham Knights series moving into the pilot stage and announcing castings. Undoubtedly, we will be seeing more DC shows pop up on the network in the meantime.
