ComingSoon.net/SuperHeroHype had a chance to sit down with him and ask him a couple of questions about his involvement in those plans, and he gave us a quick update on what heâs focusing on at the moment:
âWe are working on the treatment for the second film actually, we just started working on that with the same guys who I did the original with (Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim). Those two guys are also writing a script based on a treatment we wrote for âThe Flash,â so thatâs my involvement with DC right now is the script for âThe Flashâ and the treatment for âGL2.'â
A couple things we were interested in learning more about was the tone of the movies, as well as how theyâll bring the mythology from the comics into the movie universe. Berlanti had some really interesting ideas about Barry Allenâs character, involving his job as a crime scene investigator, which certainly will give the movie a different spin than some may be expecting:
ââGLâ is always a bit lighter than that on earth but mixed with a twinge of the space opera, which has its own epic qualities to it. âFlashâ as weâre getting into it is interesting, too. Though Barry Allen was a little lighter in the comic, I think because of the nature that he was a CSI and moved in this world of crime before this stuff happened. I think itâs tonally somewhere in between âGLâ and âDark Knight.â Itâs actually a little bit darker than when we were working on (âGLâ), because youâre dealing with somebody who is already a crimefighter in a world of those kinds of criminals and that kind of murder and homicide. I find you talk a lot about different films when youâre working on a film, and we spend a lot more time talking about âSe7enâ or âThe Silence of the Lambsâ as we construct that part of Barryâs world, then I thought when we got into it. It helps balance a guy in a red suit who runs really fast.â
Being that a lot of Green Lanternâs mythology is going to be introduced in that movie, we were curious which aspects of the âFlashâ comics might make it into the first movie, asking in particular about the Roguesâ Gallery and the time travel aspect of the comics:
âA third thing Iâd throw at you is alternate dimensions, so itâs true that we want to find the things that make it⌠With âGL,â we used to say thereâs a space opera component and then thereâs the down on earth. In âThe Flash,â thereâs the sci-fi component and thereâs the crime component and itâs fitting those two things together, and the sci-fi thing, we obviously want to nail that and honor that and do that in a way that feels visceral and real and cool and probably more in the tone of âThe Matrixâ films or things like that. I always think of âThe Flashâ stories where he met Jay Garrick and knows there was Earth Prime and things like that. Thereâs an avenue for these films to broaden the DC Film Universe in that way, so thatâs the hope.â
The idea of the movies possibly introducing the other Flash and Green Lantern and thereby making some sort of Earth-2 Justice Society (JSA) possible certainly sounds very cool, although Berlanti remains non-committal about whether he might direct that âFlashâ movie, preferring to focus on the script and figuring that important factor once itâs done.
âWhen we have the script together, Iâll probably sit down with Warner Bros. and want to decide whatâs best for that movie. Itâs so hard when youâre working on the material, the script too, because if I thought about it just as a director I would freak myself out but when I think about it just as a writer, we try so many different things. Itâs like, âI donât even know how weâre going to do that but what if we did this or what if we showed this?â Itâs more freeing and liberating so I havenât really thought beyond the script right now for it.
Look for the full interview with Greg over on ComingSoon.net sometime in the week before the movie he did direct, Life As We Know It, which opens on October 10.