Flash: “Michael Keaton in Batman asks me to take a picture for his grandson!” The director is teasing a summer superhero movie

DC’s film, Andy Muschietti’s The Flash has been in our darkrooms for over a month now. In the feature film starring Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Sasha Kalel, Michael Shannon, Ben Affleck and Kiersey Clemons, reality collides when Barry uses his superpowers to go back in time and change the past.

But his efforts to save his family are not in vain for the future. Barry finds himself trapped in a reality where General Zod has returned, threatening to wipe out the planet, and where superheroes have disappeared.

Except when Barry can bring a very changed Batman out of retirement to help an imprisoned Kryptonian who isn’t quite who he’s looking for. Barry then becomes embroiled in a terrifying race against time to protect the world he’s in and find the future he knows. But will his ultimate sacrifice be enough to save the world?

AlloCiné was able to speak exclusively with director Andy Muschietti (It: Chapters 1 & 2) and producer Barbara Muschietti, who is none other than the filmmaker’s sister.

The latter brought us their joy of working with Michael Keaton, the grueling work surrounding the filming of the film, and the Ezra Miller situation. The Flash hits theaters on June 14.

AlloCiné: How do you go from the horror film It with a $35 million budget to a film like The Flash with a $220 million budget?

Andy Muschietti : I’ve been reading comics since I was a kid and I had to wait over 30 years to turn that passion into my profession and make a superhero movie. I’ve been out a bit in recent years so I’ve had to re-educate myself in this area as I’m not a real geek.

When Warner Bros. offered me to do it Excitement At first I was surprised, but I was very excited. I really wanted to try my luck and immerse myself in the world of comics and superheroes.

As for going from that It was a pretty natural evolution for me on The Flash. Despite the length of shooting and the impressive budget, my work remains the same: you have to find the right vision for this film, its style, its tone… You have to know how to follow your creative instinct and adapt to the film. you should do..

I believe that, like in it, you will find my desire to create a powerful and highly emotional story. And of course, the movie is packed with action and humor.

It was a breath of fresh air to be able to do something other than a horror movie. It was also a real challenge to make such an ambitious film.

Barbara Muschietti: The greatest joy, and also the greatest misfortune, of the transition from mass to The Flash is the dizzying size of the budget…

Having more money actually complicates a lot of things, and while it also allows you to do what you want, you just have to learn to make the right choices and not let money take over your vision.

We are truly fortunate to have Warner’s unconditional support for Andy to make the film he had in mind. Warner trusted us completely and gave us complete freedom of expression.

AlloCiné: One of the themes of Flash is time travel. What appeals to you about this concept and why this theme for The Flash?

Barbara Muschietti : The relationship between Barry and his mother is at the center of this story. This is the most important relationship with a parent. So it felt essential to us to build a story around that relationship and how the Flash tries to make amends over time for the incident that took his mother away and sent his father to prison.

“When Michael Keaton put on the Batman suit, it was intense”

Even if it meant time travel, it was also an opportunity for us to go back Michael Keaton in Batman. It was a really intense moment of the shoot when we put him in this legendary superhero costume.

AlloCiné: Starring Ezra Miller. Can you tell us about your collaboration?

Andy Muschietti : Ezra Miller He is an amazing actor. I had a fantastic professional collaboration with him consisting of creative and fruitful exchanges. He is really a brilliant man. He is also a perfectionist and he always needs to take more shots, he is always ready for another interpretation of the same scene.

We often had to shoot more than 24 takes of the same scene! Ezra is also a talented comedian; He has an inimitable sense of humor. And what a challenge for him to play two different, diametrically opposed versions of Barry Allen, aka The Flash. A real tour!

Even if it was a difficult process for Ezra to bring these two characters to life, I think the result is more than we expected. During filming, we had to rewrite certain scenes because the structure of this story was so difficult to develop.

Ezra Miller still has a fragile mental state, but he is doing everything he can to heal it.

As you know, Ezra Miller has had some rough times, but he is much better now. He still has a fragile mental state, but is doing everything he can to recover and recover.

AlloCiné: Looks like the edit is still in progress?

Andy Muschietti: The movie is almost done, we don’t have the final cut yet, but we’ve come a long way because the movie was originally 4 hours long!

I’m much happier with the current version, which lasts 2:30. The rhythm is better and the structure is much more fluid.

In the 4 hour version, we had longer scenes because we liked to add dialogue with Ezra during filming. But I found it slowed down the narrative and added nothing to the film.

It was not easy to cut 1 hour 30 scenes and after 6 months of editing we were tired but happy. The beginning of editing will always remain the most difficult step: you are faced with these endless hours of editing…

AlloCiné: Tell us about Michael Keaton returning to the Batman suit.

Barbara Muschietti : It is a dream come true that I was able to convince Michael Keaton If Batman’s suit were to come back. I was surprised by his boundless energy. I have never seen a person with such endurance.

The challenge when you have him on set with you is to make sure he’s always doing something. You don’t want him to start getting bored or he might explode.

Michael hadn’t donned a Batman costume in over thirty years. He was very surprised that the suit was different from the suit of the time, which was rigid and in which he could not breathe. At that time, he could not even think.

He was very proud to be able to show his son and grandchildren that he was Batman again. I always remember the moment when he came to the set and saw her batcave. He was silent for a few minutes.

This set was really gigantic and breathtaking. Then he asked me to take a photo for his grandson, it was a very exciting moment. Michael Keaton in a Batman costume asks for a photo shoot Excitement. What a surreal moment!

Is the sequel already planned?

AlloCiné: The Flash has tons of new powers beyond what we know. Can you tell us more?

Andy Muschietti: We know all the powers of Flash and have listed them to include them all. We have a walk through the wall or an infinite mass shot. The only thing it can’t do is move a person at high speed because it will break.

We also created some jaw-dropping scenes, especially when he’s super-turbo and time-traveling. Visually it was a big challenge. But we couldn’t include all the powers we had in mind because he was getting a lot At the end.

AlloCiné: Do you already have any ideas for the future?

Andy Muschietti: While we have many ideas for a sequel and the new architecture of the DC Universe allows us to incorporate the multiverse to create other adventures in The Flash, everything will depend on the success of this movie at the box office. Hope to see you again in 3 or 4 years to talk about the rest!