'Deadpool' Director Tim Miller is Perfect for 'Flash'
Kevin Smith, fanboy director and superhero historian, has a pretty great idea for the upcoming Flash film: let Tim Miller direct it, and just Deadpool the whole thing up. No, he doesn’t mean that Miller should suddenly make Ezra Miller’s Flash start spewing expletives and making speedforce sex jokes, but Smith is onto something in noting that (Tim) Miller’s directorial innovation could bring some much needed life (and speed) to the DC Cinematic Universe.
“[Tim Miller] is visually fucking gifted,” Smith said. “He’d think of something that’d convey running. Because that’s, you know, we’ve seen tastes of running fast in the X-Men movies and now in the Avengers movie. But for a whole Flash movie? You’ve gotta do something like fucking astounding and new.”
Smith brought together two seemingly unrelated pieces of superhero industry news on his podcast “Fatman on Batman” this week. Tim Miller, the visual effects specialist who directed Ryan Reynolds’s Deadpool to worldwide success, recently exited the Deadpool sequel over creative differences with the film’s star. Likewise, DC’s The Flash also lost a director in indie-darling, Rick Famuyiwa over similar differences. Smith, who recently directed an episode of The Flash for the CW, suggested rather brilliantly that Miller would actually be a pretty good fit for The Flash.
Ignoring for a moment that the two film’s problems line up rather coincidentally, Smith might be onto something. As it turns out, Miller might be a better fit for The Flash than originally considered for the following reasons:
Matching visions
One of the reasons why Miller departed Deadpool 2 was over the direction of scale. Miller reportedly wanted the sequel to be even bigger than the first film, employing a true blockbuster approach with massive budget and set pieces. Reynolds disagreed, arguing in favor of keeping the first film’s mid-range budget and smaller scale. Well, since Miller is officially off of Deadpool 2, DC’s The Flash just happens to offer that same blockbuster, comic book universe film that Miller happens to be looking for. For a director as ambitious as Miller, what better film than a comic book franchise as ambitious as the DC Extended Universe?
Visual Style
Smith hits the nail on the head when he says that Miller is “visually fucking gifted.” The only reason Deadpool was greenlit in the first place was in large part thanks to the CGI demo reel Miller directed featuring the now famous highway fight scene. If anyone can compete with Snyder in terms of visual aesthetics, it could very well be Tim Miller.
Humor
From what little we’ve seen of Ezra Miller’s Flash, it’s clear that he will be the Justice League’s default funny man. Well if someone could capture the humor in a fast-talking, self-referential superhero, it’s the director who already captured the “Merc With a Mouth,” Deadpool. Miller might not be a comedy director, but his Deadpool film was plenty hilarious, and Miller’s action-oriented style left plenty of room for Reynolds’s jokes to land with perfect timing as well.
CGI Expertise
Tim Miller is a visual effects expert, and so when it comes to capturing the Flash’s super speed, there might not be a better director more suited to capture the unique power for the big screen. Bryan Singer and Joss Whedon already lent their distinct visions for Quicksilver’s super speed in X-Men and Avengers respectively, and unfortunately the Flash’s appearance in the DCEU so far hasn’t given great confidence that his speed will be captured with the same stylish panache. So far, Ezra Miller’s Flash seems to be characterized by lightning, which is all well and good, but lacks the visual kick given to Quicksilver. Here’s hoping Tim Miller could fix that.
