The Flash Was on Life Support—Then the Muschietti Siblings Stepped In
According to Barbara Muschietti, there’s one big reason she and her brother, Andy, have tackled some of Hollywood’s most troubled productions: “We’re incredibly stubborn.”
The Flash, DC Comics’ speedy superhero, has plenty of costumed enemies, but for many years, the speedster’s biggest nemeses have been the people trying to make his movie. A solo picture has been in the works since 2014, when Ezra Miller was cast as the character. Originally set for release in 2018, and attached to multiple directors during what became a lengthy production process, the project has evolved from hot ticket to hot potato, bedeviled by rewrites, the changing demands of DC’s cinematic universe, and a mountain of disturbing allegations against its lead actor.
But if The Flash nonetheless resonates with audiences, much of that will have to do with Andy and Barbara Muschietti, a brother-and-sister creative team (he directs; she produces) who have some experience with troubled Hollywood productions. A few years ago, they concluded a two-part adaptation of Stephen King’s It—a box-office sensation that somehow found a coherent narrative in the gleeful chaos of King’s 1,100-page, decades-spanning horror novel while also managing to be fun and zippy. After the hectic development of The Flash, they’ve achieved something similar, taking a property that seemed cursed and somehow delivering a breezy and charming film.
“It’s not something that I’m looking for—[these] complicated, convoluted projects,” Andy Muschietti told me in an interview. The Flash and It shared the challenge of being developed from beloved works, each with a fan base (comic readers, King fans) known for its hostility to poor adaptations of cherished texts. “You have to really follow your instincts as a storyteller and a director, because you’re telling the story based on your own emotions,” he insisted. “That’s the complication: how to do very genuine truth, and at the same time appease an audience that has their expectations. I don’t know what the answer is.”
His sister, who co-wrote the duo’s breakout horror project, Mama (2013), was similarly demure. “We’ve never gone into a project thinking, Well, it’s been tried before and no one could make it,” Barbara told me. “We’re incredibly stubborn. And we will bust a nut getting things done. But, you know, we don’t go into projects to prove how we can and others can’t. It’s impossible to sustain that for four years of filmmaking.” Still, as a hard-working duo, the Muschiettis have moved through every level of the filmmaking system, starting out as assistants on the Argentinean location shoot of Evita in 1996, then creating short films and commercials in the 2000s before launching the low-budget horror debut hit Mama.
With It, the Muschiettis came aboard another long-gestating project that had been attached to various writers and directors since a cinematic adaptation was first announced in 2009. King’s much-worshipped novel had previously worked only as fodder for a TV miniseries, but Muschietti oversaw a script rewrite that was clearly enough to reassure a studio panicked about cost overruns. The first It film felt like more than a hasty salvage job: A jumpy roller-coaster ride with genuinely inventive feats of horror—that haunted Modigliani-inspired painting is my favorite—it turned out to be a critical and commercial sensation. And though the much-hyped Chapter Two had a more mixed reception, it was still a huge money-earner, especially for an R-rated movie running nearly three hours.
After working back-to-back on those films, the Muschiettis were offered another challenge by Warner Bros.: The Flash, years past its planned release date and mired in rewrites. “We needed a couple months to think about it, because we were exhausted,” Barbara said. Upon reading the screenwriter Christina Hodson’s new draft of the film, they came around and began work with the film’s other producer, Michael Disco. Their first instinct was to create something in the vein of the superheroes they grew up on, like Richard Donner’s Superman (1978) or the Day-Glo joy of the ’60s Batman series starring Adam West. “We would watch on a 12-inch black-and-white TV because it was the ’70s and in Argentina,” Andy said. “We wouldn’t see those colors until years later.” Another early love was Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman, enough of a touchstone that the duo green-lighted the return of that hero, as portrayed by Michael Keaton, for The Flash. But Donner’s Superman is The Flash’s most obvious inspiration: It has “the combination of an incredibly heartfelt story and the fear of loss,” Barbara explained, but doesn’t sacrifice a sense of goofy fun.
The Flash is, in theory, one of DC’s simplest heroes to understand. After a science-lab accident, plucky youngster Barry Allen gains the ability to run very fast. There are some nuances to his powers—the most important of which is that he learns to travel back in time—but Barry is often presented as a cheerful, down-to-earth crimefighter, unlike the gloomy billionaire Batman or burdened-with-godhood Wonder Woman. Miller’s portrayal of the character in films such as Suicide Squad and Justice League has largely hewed to that, presenting Barry as a gleeful chatterbug.
Andy Muschietti’s pitch for The Flash, though, revolved around the death of the character’s mother, Nora (played by Maribel Verdú)—a traumatic event that Barry eventually travels back to try to undo, inadvertently causing countless other changes to his own reality. “I wanted to create an emotional core that was strong enough to validate the rest of this big adventure,” Andy said. “Very often, these big movies don't have a heart big enough to go in for the ride.” To give Nora real weight, the Muschiettis insisted on casting Verdú, a Spanish actress probably best-known for her role in Y Tu Mamá También, even though she’d never worked in Hollywood before. “She exudes a warmth and familiarity and a closeness,” Andy said. “It was like a perfect weapon for a movie that needed that in the center … It’s the chemistry between Maribel and Ezra that made that love story so true.” The pairing does work, and Barry’s motivation for screwing up the timeline is fully understandable.
They are full of praise for Miller’s performance; Andy called them “a brilliant actor, but also a brilliant comedian.” The allegations surrounding Miller, however, are so pervasive that it’s tough to shake them even while enjoying the film. First, disturbing videos of a person appearing to be Miller choking a woman were posted on Twitter in 2020. Then, in 2022, Miller was implicated in a series of disconnected, distressing stories alleging erratic or violent behavior and, in one instance, the grooming of a teenager. (In a since-deleted Instagram video, the teenager disagreed with the grooming allegations: “These are my decisions, and I’m disappointed in my parents and the press in every way.”) Last August, Miller released a statement saying they were seeking treatment for “complex mental health issues” and apologized “to everyone that I have alarmed and upset with my past behavior,” after which they essentially vanished from the public eye.
Most of the allegations against Miller and reports of their erratic behavior emerged after the movie’s production was complete. Recasting them in this film, given that they appear in almost every frame, was obviously too expensive a proposition, but the result is undeniably bizarre. Miller’s performance is energetic and heartfelt, but the mental compartmentalization required to engage with it may understandably be too much for many viewers.
Andy has supported Miller’s return to the role in any hypothetical sequel, and Barbara has dismissed rumors that The Flash’s release was ever in jeopardy because of the manifold legal issues surrounding the actor. When I asked about the controversies, the pair didn’t directly acknowledge the charges but instead pivoted right back to talking about their love for the film they’ve made. More than the multiple script drafts or ongoing questions about the future of the DC film franchise, the unsettling allegations against Miller could impede the chances of The Flash gaining traction. But the Muschiettis seemed filled with confidence that their movie’s propulsive joy will be enough to vault the hero from one dying cinematic universe to whatever saga will follow. “It depends on the acceptance of audiences,” Andy said. But “we’re confident that this movie will be absorbed in the new DC universe.” I might scoff, but they haven’t been proved wrong yet.