The Flash featured the return of Michael Keaton as Batman after a 30-year absence. The original Batman director Tim Burton recently spoke out against his return and Nicolas Cage’s appearance as Superman, calling them “cultural misappropriations”.
Tim Burton has had a surprisingly long history with Warner Bros. and DC, having directed the original Batman movies starring Michael Keaton and developing a scrapped Superman Lives project with Nicolas Cage. Both characters were recently revived with The Flash, a fact Burton seems none-too-pleased about, revealing he’s in a “quiet revolt” against Hollywood studios:
“But also it goes into another AI thing, and this is why I think I’m over it with the studio,” Burton told the British Film Institute. “They can take what you did, Batman or whatever, and culturally misappropriate it, or whatever you want to call it. Even though you’re a slave of Disney or Warner Brothers, they can do whatever they want. So in my latter years of life, I’m in quiet revolt against all this.”
The return of Michael Keaton as Batman and the debut of Nicolas Cage as Superman in The Flash certainly proved controversial, and not just to Tim Burton. Between the muddled CGI and the lackluster reception to the film, their appearances simply didn’t land the way DC Studios had hoped, with them originally planning to make Keaton the main Batman of the DC Universe. Let’s just hope their next attempt at Batman goes over better with fans and directors alike.
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 Verd? 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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Batman director Tim Burton spoke out against Michael Keaton’s return and Nicolas Cage’s appearance as Superman, calling them “cultural misappropriations”. Read More