If Warner Bros. and DC Comics were looking to one-up Marvel in the game of leftfield directing choices after this weekend’s announcement of Taika Waititi for** Thor: Ragnarok, the companies have managed it. Prolific author, screenwriter and producer Seth Grahame-Smith is in negotiations to write and direct **The Flash{
Grahame-Smith, who has thus far limited his directing to two episodes of TV comedy The Hard Times Of RJ Berger, which he wrote on and produced, would seem to be a hugely unlikely candidate for the job of one of DC’s big comic book movies despite his experience behind the camera in other roles. He adapted his novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter into a film, wrote Dark Shadows for Tim Burton and has written and is producing a multitude of other projects, including a Gremlins reboot, a Beetlejuice sequel and a new Looney Toons film. He's also been dipping into the superhero arena via writing The Lego Batman Movie, which is preparing to go into production.
He takes over the Flash film from Lego uber-brains Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who had added writing a treatment for the superhero standalone to their mile-long To Do list, but are too busy working on, among other things, a Han Solo film for the** Star Wars** universe to go ahead and write/direct the speedy hero.
Ezra Miller is already attached to star as Barry Allen, who will reportedly be (briefly) introduced in Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice next year (March 25 here, to be exact), have a bigger showcase in Justice League Part One in 2017 and then his own film in 2018.
The new director is even more unexpected given that Grahame-Smith has been something of a lightning rod for criticism from fans. But now we’ll get to see how he does as a director, and whether he can bring the same level of joy and adventure as delivered on a weekly basis (with a much smaller budget) by the TV version of the character.