Comic book legend Grant Morrison has recalled the “hardcore” experience of being given just 14 days to pen a huge blockbuster movie.
We’re almost a year away to the day from the release of The Flash movie and the vortex surrounding Warner Bros solo outing for the Scarlet Speedster continues to cause the studio headaches. Ezra Miller’s widely publicised behaviour has some quarters of the online world wondering if the film will even merit a cinematic release given the bad press swirling around its star. However, the sense of chaos surrounding the project precedes Miller’s alleged activities by some measure.
Here’s a case in point: comic book legend Grant Morrison, a writer who knows a thing or two about the character, was asked to collaborate on a script for the film by none other than Miller. The catch? Morrison had just two weeks to write it.
As Morrison recalls it: “Well, there had been a few versions, and as far as I remember, Ezra just wasn’t quite happy with what they were getting at the time. And Ezra had a lot of ideas; they came to me with a book of ideas. And then we worked together. It really was just the two of us. They came over here to Scotland and hung out, and we wrote this thing. I really liked it. Warner Bros only gave us two weeks!”
Given the scale of the project and the budget involved, the idea of Miller jetting to Scotland to knock out a fresh script with Morrison in just two weeks fits the seemingly-tumultuous nature of the production so far. Whilst Morrison enjoyed the process, they also admit that it was tough, recalling “it was cruelty, you know. It was hardcore. We had to be like the Flash to get this thing done, and they were looking for something quite different. I got paid, and it was good fun. It didn’t do the job they were looking for, which was to franchise things and set things up, and bring other characters in. It was a Flash story, so it wasn’t where they wanted to go with multiverse and stuff. And that was the end of it.”
Whilst the credited writing team would eventually be Birds Of Prey's Christina Hodson and Obi-Wan Kenobi's Joby Harold, it’s clear that a lot of other writers were involved in the process. We’ll have to wait for a good while yet to see how it all turned out but Morrison’s story offers a fascinating insight into the film’s production.
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