Original Flash Directors Reveal Why They Left The Troubled Ezra Miller Production
The original writing and directing duo for The Flash left the project due to creative differences with Ezra Miller.
The Flash has been a cursed production from the moment it was thought into existence in 2013, having gone through a myriad of writers and directors and having faced delay after delay over the course of an entire decade. The film was initially set to release in 2018, and Warner Bros. prepared audiences by having Ezra Miller appear in Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck’s Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad in 2016. However, through more delays, the film never started production, and eventually, the writing and directing duo attached to the film, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, decided to leave the production because of Miller, as the pair disclosed during an interview with Variety.
While Ezra Miller’s controversial behavior has been a thorn in Warner Bros. Discovery’s side for the past couple of years, the actor had yet to choke out a woman in Iceland, commit a series of abusive harassments in Hawaii, or do any of the other things that had fans believing they would get the boot from The Flash at the time that Goldstein and Daley decided to leave the production. Instead, it seemed that Miller was not on board with the duo’s script, despite the filmmakers having spent more than a year working on it.
At the time, Goldstein and Daley were the latest in a long-running line of filmmakers who had toyed with the idea of writing and directing the first live-action feature film about the Scarlet Speedster. Goldstein and Daley pitched a different kind of superhero movie to Warner Bros., one that featured Ezra Miller as a more youthful and playful hero who is imperfect in as many ways as possible in The Flash, and the studio loved the idea. Unfortunately, Miller disagreed.
Goldstein and Daley spent over a year working and revising the script for The Flash, even as the production kept being put on hold so Ezra Miller could film Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. Then, in 2019, it was revealed that Miller had been working on their own script for The Flash, with a very different tone than what Goldstein and Daley had been writing. The actor was dedicated to pitching their version to the studio, and if Warner Bros. didn’t like it, they were prepared to leave.
So, Goldstein and Daley left instead. The writing and directing duo left due to creative differences and became one of almost a dozen filmmakers who had attempted to make The Flash before moving on to other projects. Instead, Goldstein and Daley ended up filming Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and spent four years working on the project, which is set to come out this year, ironically three months before Ezra Miller’s The Flash will arrive in theaters.
Despite years of delays and tons of rumors that Ezra Miller would be replaced, The Flash eventually found its writer and director. Andy Muschietti, known for directing the It remake and It Chapter Two, will direct The Flash, and Christina Hodson, who wrote Bumblebee and Birds of Prey, penned the final script.
The Flash will hit theaters on June 16, pending any more delays.
