DC fans are angry all over again about The Flash movie snubbing Grant Gustin. The actor became famous for giving life to Barry Allen on The CW’s Arrowverse, the shared DC TV universe that recently concluded with the final season of Gustin’s The Flash. Despite playing Barry Allen for nine seasons, with several crossovers under his belt, Gustin did not appear in The Flash.
That was a strange decision by director Andy Muschietti, as The Flash included multiple multiverse cameos such as Nicolas Cage’s Superman, Adam West’s Batman, and even a generic CGI recreation of Jay Garrick, the first character to become The Flash, but the actor responsible for making the hero popular to an entire generation of DC fans, Gustin, was completely absent. With The Flash hitting digital, DC fans have taken to Twitter to again voice their criticism over Gustin’s The Flash movie snub. Check out several reactions below:
@blurayangel shares a meme pointing out how Gustin must have felt sad from being excluded from The Flash.
@HOUSEOFEL38 was angry about Gustin, Cyborg actor Ray Fisher, and Man of Steel star Henry Cavill getting snubbed.
@capeshitsucks shared their disbelief at The Flash having several cameos but no Gustin.
@D4hz4hn raises the point that Gustin would have been a better fit to The Flash‘s target audience than almost all the film’s multiverse cameos.
@Sinestros_Myte notes how Gustin and Ezra Miller interact in The Flash series but not in the speedster’s movie.
@TARYNxOFFICIAL says Gustin’s presence would have prevented The Flash movie from bombing at the box office.
@byodinsfades thinks The Flash‘s multiverse cameos would have been better with Gustin and original live-action The Flash actor John Wesley Shipp there.
@NickMenakos thinks it is insane that The Flash chose to prioritize Batman and Superman cameos rather than Gustin and Shipp.
Why DC Fans Are Angry About The Flash Snubbing Grant Gustin
Gustin first played Barry Allen back in 2013, appearing in two episodes of Arrow season 2 alongside Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen. The character would then get his own spinoff series, The Flash, which would keep the Arrowverse going after Amell’s show ended in 2020. Just months before Miller’s The Flash movie arrived in theaters, Gustin bowed out as Barry Allen after nine seasons.
The Arrowverse carried DC through a period where most of the DCEU films were met with divisive reception. The DC TV crossovers became more popular with fans than movies like Justice League. In the Arrowverse’s Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover event, Gustin and Miller’s Barry Allens met through the multiverse. That meeting led to Miller’s DCEU Barry Allen getting The Flash name from Gustin’s version of the character.
Fans were understandably excited to see that interaction between the characters continue in a movie that is all about the multiverse, and The Flash‘s missed opportunity of including a Gustin cameo would also have served to honor his long tenure in the role, which made the speedster popular to a whole generation. While fans were sad at the Arrowverse actor not appearing in the movie, the explanation for Gustin’s absence being that The Flash‘s team “just had to pick” and chose to revive multiple actors with shoddy CGI rather than have Gustin shoot a scene led to the fans’ outrage over The Flash snubbing the actor.
Source: Several links seen above/Twitter
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