Warner Bros. released the official trailer for The Flash during Sunday’s Super Bowl LVII, and Michael Keaton’s confirmed return as Batman (from the beloved Tim Burton era) pretty much set the Internet on fire. For many, Keaton was the definitive Batman for decades until The Dark Knight trilogy (with Christian Bale donning the cape) kicked off in 2005. So naturally, it was kind of a thrill to see Keaton and Ben Affleck’s Batman from the Zack Snyder era join forces to repair a timeline that was disastrously altered due to some pretty poor decision-making on the part of The Flash (Ezra Miller).

The original plans for a Flash-centric film date back to the late 1980s, but the current incarnation began development in late 2004, when Warner Bros. hired David Goyer to write, direct, and produce such a movie. Goyer eventually left the project over the usual “creative differences,” and so did several others over the ensuing years, until Andy Muschietti (It, It: Chapter 2) signed on to direct in 2019. Miller’s The Flash had already made his DC Extended Universe debut with cameo appearances in Batman v. Superman and Suicide Squad in 2016 and as a co-star in 2017’s Justice League. And the wider DC multiverse was confirmed when Miller made a cameo in the Arrowverse TV crossover event Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019–2020).

A tale of two Barrys: “You stole my face!” (credit: YouTube/Warner Bros.)

Earlier scripts focused on adapting the Flashpoint crossover storyline from the comic books, in which the Scarlet Speedster goes back in time to keep his mother from being murdered, thereby altering the entire timeline. In that alternate world, a young Bruce Wayne is killed rather than his parents. Thomas Wayne becomes Batman, Martha Wayne becomes The Joker, Wonder Woman and Aquaman are bitter enemies, and Superman is a prisoner. Muschietti kept several of the Flashpoint story elements while acknowledging that this would be a different version. And he wanted to include not just Keaton’s Batman but Ben Affleck’s too, since he thought Barry’s relationship with the latter would make Keaton’s inclusion even more powerful.