Ezra Miller as The Flash in Justice League 2017. (Photo: Clay Enos/©Warner Bros. Pictures/Courtesy The Everett Collection)
The future of The Flash — Warner Bros.’s once-anticipated superhero action film — is in jeopardy amid star Ezra Miller’s disturbing and seemingly never-ending collisions with the law over the past year.
Or maybe not: So far, WB has given no official indication that it plans to delay or disrupt the June 2023 release, despite the studio’s recent controversial cancellation of the near-complete Batgirl film.
Here’s everything you need to know about Miller’s troubles, and how they might (or might not) ultimately doom The Flash.
What’s happening The Lightning?
The 14th film in the DC Extended Universe (not counting director’s cut Zack Snyder’s Justice League) and ninth standalone entry (after previous adventures with the likes of Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Shazam), The Flash has had its fair share of troubles before Miller’s behavioral problems. Previously affiliated directors Seth Grahame-Smith, Rick Famuyiwa and the tandem of John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein all parted ways over creative differences, before Andy Muschietti (who helped WB with two chapters of Stephen King’s It adaptations some pretty cents) took over the reins in July 2019. The film’s main constant, however, was Miller, who was cast as the lightning-fast superhero Barry Allen before a cameo in 2016’s Batman v Superman before co-starring as one of the six main characters played and stole scenes Justice League (2017). Miller became an instant fan favorite for bringing some much-needed comic relief to DC’s often dark moodiness.
Written by Christina Hodson (Birds of Prey), The Flash allegedly finds Barry going back in time to prevent his mother’s (Maribel Verdú) murder, which “has unintended consequences for his timeline.” In other words, the film could break up the DC Multiverse much like Marvel’s December megahit Spider-Man: No Way Home. Miller is set to play at least one other version of Barry, while Ron Livingston (replacing Billy Crudup as Barry’s father Henry) and Kiersey Clemons (Barry’s love interest Iris) co-star. The film has also garnered a lot of attention for featuring two Bäumen (Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck), Superman’s nemesis General Zod (Michael Shannon) and a brand new Supergirl (Sasha Calle).
The story goes on
The Flash was originally scheduled for release on June 3 this year, but the pandemic forced production delays of a year. The theatrical release is currently scheduled for June 23, 2023.
Related video: Warner Bros. stands by Ezra Miller, CEO David Zaslav is ‘very excited’ about ‘The Flash’
What did Ezra Miller do wrong?
Every defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty in the American justice system, but what is particularly egregious about the Ezra Miller case (or cases, should we say) is the sheer number of thorny incidents and arrests of the actor (who uses the pronouns sie / she) was involved in the last two years.
Miller first made headlines for all the wrong reasons in April 2020, when video surfaced showing the actor choking a woman and throwing her to the ground outside a bar in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Miller’s so-called crime frenzy accelerated dramatically in 2022. In March, Miller was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and harassment after physically altering patrons at a Hawaii karaoke bar. Just three weeks later, they were arrested again in Hawaii for second-degree assault after allegedly throwing a chair that left a deep gash on a woman’s forehead.
In June, the parents of 18-year-old Standing Rock Sioux activist Tokata Iron Eyes alleged that Miller used “violence, intimidation, threats of violence, fear, paranoia, delusions and drugs” to influence their daughter, von who they said began an inappropriate relationship with Miller when she was just 12, and the actor was 23.
Also in June, a Massachusetts family claimed that Miller molested and threatened them, with allegations including the actor showing up at their home wearing a bulletproof vest, brandishing a gun and uncomfortable touching a 12-year-old child. According to the mother, Miller believed the child was a “mystical being.”
Miller has also reportedly housed a woman and her three young children he met in Hawaii at his Vermont farm, where the children’s father claims the actor kept firearms and ammunition in dangerous proximity to the children. (The woman has claimed the father was abusive.) Vermont Child Services are reportedly now trying to locate the mother and her three children.
Related video: Vermont police charge ‘The Flash’ star Ezra Miller with burglary
And this week, Miller was again charged with burglary in Vermont for allegedly stealing alcohol bottles from a private home.
It’s all set for an alarming pattern of disturbing and erratic behavior for the 29-year-old star, to say the least.
Leslie Grace in Batgirl. (Photo: WB/HBO Max)
what does bat girl have to do with it?
Warner Bros., which recently merged with Discovery, shocked Hollywood and much of the world when the studio announced earlier this month that it was canceling the planned HBO Max release of its $70 million DC Comics film Batgirl , although the project was almost complete. The film was directed by duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (Bad Boys 4 Life, Ms. Marvel), wrote the screenplay by Hodson, and is set to star Leslie Grace in a rare Latinx-led superhero film. JK Simmons and Brendan Fraser co-starred, while Keaton also reprized his role as Bruce Wayne in the film.
An initial report from Variety suggested that Warner Bros. Discovery was pulling the plug on Batgirl (as well as the animated Scooby-Doo sequel, Scoob! Holiday Haunt) for tax reasons as the newly merged company’s new leadership sought to move away from a short-lived emphasis to be removed on high-budget HBO Max streaming titles. In a statement, the company wrote, “The decision not to release Batgirl reflects the strategic shift in our leadership regarding the DC Universe and HBO Max.” Speculation arose that the film must have been really bad to be scrapped so unceremoniously. “We’re not going to release a movie if we don’t believe in it,” he said on a conference call.
Similar video: ‘Batgirl’ star Leslie Grace thanks fans for letting her ‘take the cloak’ after the film was scrapped
Regardless, the cancellation of Batgirl was a near-unprecedented move that understandably broke the heart of Adil & Bilall and Grace, and supported its creators from Marvel boss Kevin Feige and directors James Gunn and Edgar Wright.
It also sparked a lot of outrage on the internet, one of the most sonorous refrains “How can WB cancel Batgirl and still plan to release The Flash when its lead actor seems to get arrested every month?”
Filmmaker and expert on everything geek Kevin Smith echoed the prevailing sentiments on social media. “It looks incredibly bad to cancel the Latina Batgirl movie,” Smith said on his YouTube series Hollywood Babble-On. “I don’t give a shit if the movie was absolute dog shit – I guarantee you it wasn’t…I don’t give a shit how bad the Batgirl movie is, nobody in this movie is complicated or has anything in their real life, that needs to be marketed. In the Flash movie, we all know there’s a big problem! Flash is reverse flash in real life.”
Infuriating further on Wednesday, revealed that while most of The Flash was filmed in 2021, the studio hired Miller for new recordings that summersomewhere in between all their troubles with the law.
Ezra Miller was seen at her mother’s Vermont home for the first time since her consecutive arrests in Hawaii. (Photo: Flightrisk / BACKGRID)
So where does The Lightning go from here?
Well, that’s a $200 million question (also the tentpole’s reported budget).
As of Aug. 5, as reports from the Warner Bros. Discovery conference call surfaced, The Flash was still on track. “We saw The Flash, Black Adam and Shazam 2,” Zaslav said, according to Variety. “We are very excited about them. We saw her. We think they’re great and we think we can make them even better.” (meeting also reported that the film received good marks in test screenings.)
But expect that with every new Miller incident (is there really an end in sight at this point?), expect pressure on Warner Bros. to reconsider the release of The Flash, as it did after this week’s news from Vermont was.
According to in an article published Thursday, the studio is now considering three options in light of Miller’s recent arrest.
First, they could arrange for Miller (who, according to THR, has been accompanied by her mother for the past few days and was photographed upstairs at her Vermont home) to seek professional help and eventually give an interview explaining her erratic behavior. In that case, the studio would go ahead with The Flash’s release plans, although it’s hard to imagine Miller doing much press for it, all things considered.
Second, even if Miller doesn’t redeem himself, Warner Bros. could still release the film — but recast The Flash in future projects.
Or third, should Miller continue to wreak havoc, the studio could scrap the film altogether. As THR notes, with Miller in almost every scene, it would be impossible to direct the film with another actor (a la Ridley Scott’s 2017 drama All the Money in the World, which replaced disgraced supporting actor Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer). to re-spin.
Media outlets have differed opinions on the fate of The Flash.
“I don’t see #1 happening or, if it happened, working.” tweeted THR columnist Scott Feinberg. “#2 doesn’t make sense as they see this as an investment in a long term franchise. Sooo… I suspect BATGIRL will be having company soon.”
“My Totally Uninformed Opinion” started Fangoria Editor-in-Chief Phil Noble Jr. “The guy whose terrible instinct about optics helped him shelve a $90M POC-led Batgirl film doesn’t care about Ezra Miller’s crime series and will be releasing this film when nothing would have happened.”
Stay tuned.