The Flash shocked fans across the world when it was revealed that Jay Garrick was in the film, but not played by anyone audiences would recognize. The film’s editor, Jason Ballantine, revealed the original Scarlet Speedster was played by none other than… himself!?
The Flash was riddled with leaks for years leading up to its release. When it was revealed by insiders that Jay Garrick would appear in the film, minds jumped at who could play the character: John Wesley Shipp, Teddy Sears, or even Tom Hanks! However, when the film came out, nobody could recognize who played the character. During a recent interview, the movie’s editor, Jason Ballantine, revealed that he was actually used as a basis for the character, despite them being fully digital.
“…There was a moment with Andy figuring out the Chrono Bowls and the revisiting to the different time periods, etc., and the Jay Garrick character, the black and white Flash, and Andy’s conceptualizing that,” Ballantine told Frame.io. “He wanted that as one of the characters and quite large on screen. And then DJ, our visual effects supervisor, said, ‘Well, if we’re going to have a digital character that large on screen, then it would be better to have a real face just to help with the look of the shot.’ And so I stuck my hand up, my arm nearly flew off my shoulder, to volunteer to have an opportunity to have my face stuck on the original Flash.”
The Flash using a fully digital character isn’t just ironic due to the film’s notoriously shoddy CGI, but due to the current situation with strikes in Hollywood. Given it’s likely at least one of Jay Garrick’s prior actors like John Wesley Shipp or Teddy Sears was available for such a quick cameo, opting to simply scan the face of an editor and chuck it into the film comes off as tone deaf at best and damning at worst. Though, perhaps unluckily for Warner Bros, this was far from the biggest controversy The Flash faced during its run.
The Flash’s DC Universe future
Warner Bros. Discovery already has a script for a potential sequel to The Flash, written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, the man behind the two Aquaman movies starring Jason Momoa. However, James Gunn and Peter Safran did not discuss the Flash sequel during their DC Universe presentation.
Directed by Andy Muschietti from a script written by Birds of Prey scribe Christina Hodson, The Flash is inspired by the Flashpoint comic book storyline, which followed Barry Allen as he navigated an altered DC Universe. Written by Geoff Johns and penciled by Andy Kuber, Flashpoint radically altered the status of the DC Comics universe and led to the launch of the New 52 titles.
In addition to Ezra Miller, The Flash also features Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck as two separate versions of Batman, Ron Livingston as Henry Allen, Maribel Verdú as Nora Allen, Kiersey Clemons as Iris West, Michael Shannon as General Zod, Antje Traue as Faora-Ul and Sasha Calle as Supergirl.
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