The Flash on the CW has had 138 episodes so far.
An average budget of 2 million an episode, coming to 272 million spent.
1.3 million viewers has been the average for new episodes on premiere.

This is based on the DC superhero, released in 1940, a year after Batman and two years before Superman.

The character was never a hit for comics the same way as Batman, Superman or Spider-Man, but has done moderately well, where special releases have averaged 140,000 total units sold. Also, due to crossovers such as Justice League, while never having much success leading a comic series, the Flash sold tens of millions of comics as a side character.

Looking at the rise of comics, where Marvel has made over 25 billion in theaters and the DCEU movies have made 5.8 billion, doing a Flash movie on paper makes perfect sense.

That being said, due to the casting of the controversial actor Ezra Miller, Warner Bros likely wasted 200 million on a Flash movie.

Basic timeline on Ezra Miller for those who don’t follow celebrity tabloid sites.

• Recorded in Iceland choking a woman in 2020.
• Arrested in Hawaii for grabbing a karaoke mic from a woman and throwing it at a man, having a freakout.
• The police revealed Ezra Miller had 10 calls against them in 30 days, doing everything from arguing with people on the street to recording people at gas stations.
• Was given a restraining order by their roommates for stealing the roommates passports, ID’s, bank cards and threatening them.
• Arrested again for throwing a chair at a woman.
• Accused a cop of touching them, despite zero evidence and a video showing the cop wasn’t near them.
• Currently sued for grooming a 12 year old, who is now 18 and also a well known activist with Greta Thunberg.
• Traveling with said 18 year old to avoid the law.
• Had protection order filed against them by parents of another 12 year old.

The actor has more or less completely lost it and at this point ruined any possibility of success for the Flash movie, despite a 200 million dollar investment.

The Flash movie also being a heavy investment for Warner Bros talent wise also.

Michael Keaton is returning as Batman after 32 years.
Ben Affleck will be concluding his run as Batman.
Michael Shannon is returning as General Zod after 10 years.

What’s even worse is the events of the movie directly relate to the DC film Batgirl, which is supposed to be an HBO Max original and has over 100 million invested into it.

This craziness really only gives Warner the following options.

Release the movie as planned and ignore Ezra Miller.

Issue there is it’d be doing a 200 million dollar movie titled the Flash and having to ignore the actor playing the Flash in all marketing.

There also is the reality the actor is clearly mentally off and at any point could get arrested during release being a PR nightmare.

Redo the movie without Ezra Miller.

Something like this happened years ago with Kevin Spacey being replaced by Christopher Plumber for the Ridley Scott movie, All the Money in the World.

The redo cost 10 million dollars and delayed the film slightly.

The difference between that and the Flash is it was a smaller budget movie at 50 million dollars, Kevin Spacey’s character of John Paul Getty had under 40% screen time and there were no costumes or special effects.

The Flash is reported to have Ezra Miller at over 70% screen time, it costs 200 million dollars and the special effects/costumes would be difficult to redo.

It could end up costing the movie 50-100 million to do this, where the history of most reshoots haven’t been good.

The Star Wars movie Solo was originally directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who were thrown off and replaced by Ron Howard.

The replacement had them redo the majority of footage shot, where the cast was angry they had to do weeks if not months of additional work. The movie cost 300 million to make, making it the most expensive Star Wars film ever, which was also the lowest performing at 393 million at the box office and Solo lost over 100 million.

Redoing the Flash with a different actor would be a similar expense, but just delay the movie roughly a year and give it no promise of money.

These two options are both awful, which is why I believe it’ll be one of the next two.

Rebrand the movie to have Michael Keaton as the lead.

This one is entirely dependent on story.

It was reported that Michael Keaton returning as Batman would be a major part to the movie.

If it’s possible to add some more scenes with him, redo parts of the film and position it to Michael Keaton as the main actor, that might work.

Title it something like “Batman: Flashpoint”, which could relate more to the comic it was based on.

This is sort of a cheat, but probably will sell well relying on Michael Keaton to lead the marketing and even if Ezra Miller still has a lot of screen time, it won’t matter as much.

HBO Max release and give Batgirl the Flash’s release date.

This one I see as the most likely, because both movies contain Michael Keaton and Batgirl generally seems easier to market.

Batgirl is planned as an HBO Max release for this year, but the Flash which is already in post production could likely be pushed to this year on HBO Max and the Flash in 2023.

This again is a tough one, but will avoid a PR nightmare, while releasing a movie that might end up making more money anyway.

Final thoughts

Reason for writing this is how it’s generally amazing a 200 million dollar movie was made for an iconic character, but just the choice to cast a generally crazy person made it so some people just want it shelved.

Shows why insurance exists and why so many liability actors don’t get hired, even when it feels unfair sometimes.