This year at the San Diego Comic-Con, I moderated a panel about “Kung Fury,” the completely insane movie by David Sandberg. I was approached about moderating by Seth Grahame-Smith, and the night of the panel, I had a chance to chat with Grahame-Smith a bit. Since his breakthrough success with the book “Pride & Prejudice & Zombies,” he's managed to stay hard at work as a screenwriter while publishing a number of other books and supervising the translation of his breakthrough to the bigscreen.
It feels like things are starting to pay off now, though. He brought “Pride” to the Comic-Con this year, and he seemed absolutely delighted with the end result. He's the writer of “The Lego Batman Movie,” which is one of those films I would not dare underestimate on a commercial level. After the way Batman essentially walked away with “The Lego Movie,” it seems likely a solo film starring the character is going to be a major event for family audiences.
And speaking of solo films, the news broke today that Grahame-Smith is both writing and directing “The Flash,” which will see Ezra Miller suit up. This was previously announced as a film by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, but they're crazy busy as well, and it appears they've decided to make the “Han Solo” movie instead at Disney. They wrote a treatment for “The Flash,” and with a 2018 release date already in play, it seems like it's likely Warner Bros. wants someone on the film they have a great relationship with, and that's Grahame-Smith all over. He's involved with so many films at the studio, including “It,” “Beetlejuice 2,” “Gremlins 2,” “Five Nights At Freddy's,” and a new “Looney Toons,” that this really does feel like Warner turning to someone they trust implicitly right now.
I still say the biggest problem they're going to have with this film is that they've created such a successful TV version of “The Flash.” It's a good problem to have, but it's a problem nonetheless. It all depends on how they build up to the release of this movie. The best case scenario is that the show is still successful and that it has created a real interest from audiences in the Flash and his powers, and they go to the movie ready for something different that plays with the same ideas. Whatever the case, I'm sure we'll see some storytelling seeds laid for this one in “Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice” in the spring. It's a big part of what Warner has planned, and this hiring gets them one step closer to actually making their long-announced date for this movie.
We'll see what happens when “The Flash” arrives in theaters March 3, 2018.