Here are the 3 stunning endings filmed for The Flash

The Flash almost had a very different ending featuring a lot more major characters.

Ezra Miller finally sped onto the big screen this year, as The Flash debuted in movie theaters over the weekend. It’s a crucial movie for Warner Bros. Discovery and DC Studios, as it will finally reset the DC Universe (rebooting the DCEU).

Because I hate getting things spoiled for myself, here’s a friendly MAJOR SPOILER WARNING FOR THE FLASH if I’ve lured you in and you haven’t seen it yet.

The movie’s ending scene unfolds with Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) having a seemingly routine phone call with Bruce Wayne, following a climactic courthouse hearing and Barry’s victorious return to his own Earth and timeline. As Wayne emerges from his car, the crowd parts to reveal a major surprise.

But that’s not the only surprise, it seems. A recent report from The Hollywood Reporter confirms that the film’s ending scene was changed multiple times, all because the movie was intended for different purposes by different creative teams.

*** Reminder: This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS from The Flash. Don’t read on if you don’t want it spoiled for you. ***

The three ending scenes for The Flash

If you’ve watched The Flash, you will know that George Clooney made an unexpected return to the role of Bruce Wayne, who shows up outside the courthouse in support of Barry Allen, whose antics in changing the timeline resulted in a whole new Batman. However, that wasn’t always going to be the idea for the film’s conclusion.

As revealed by The Hollywood Reporter, we had three possible endings for The Flash at one point or another.

• The original ending would have seen Michael Keaton and Sasha Calle reprise their roles Bruce Wayne and Supergirl on the steps of the courthouse, being there for Barry in the same way that Clooney’s Batman was. The purpose of this scene was to showcase that some of the Flashpoint timeline carried over into the DCEU timeline, with Keaton taking over from Ben Affleck as the primary Batman in future movies.
• The second ending saw Keaton and Calle joined by Henry Cavill’s Superman and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. This would have set up the next phase of the Justice League and seemed like a logical idea as Wonder Woman 3 was, at the time, in development and Cavill was due to return as Superman.
• The third ending is the one that ended up in the movie. With James Gunn and Peter Safran resetting all things DCEU into the DC Universe, the duo decided to bring George Clooney in to keep the sentiment of the ever-changing timeline after Barry’s reset, but to highlight it in a more whimsical way that didn’t promise plans they wouldn’t deliver on. And with Henry Cavill officially out as Superman, and the futures of Keaton, Calle, Gadot’s characters unclear at this point, they opted against the previously filmed ending scenes.

Oh, what could have been.

Clooney’s reappearance as Bruce Wayne in the final moments of The Flash comes 25 years after his first and only outing in the role. This was a stunning twist, considering Clooney has openly acknowledged how bad he believes he was in the role when he originally played it. Rumors about a potential appearance surfaced weeks ago, but few took it seriously because it would have been so unfathomable. And yet, here we are, and fans around the world are still reeling from that moment.

The Flash’s turbulent and changing final scene explained

The Flash‘s journey from inception to the big screen was akin to a rollercoaster ride, constantly morphing and adapting in a dynamic media landscape, accommodating the likes of changing studio heads and a multibillion-dollar acquisition. As THR states, it all started under Toby Emmerich and Walter Hamada’s leadership, envisioning a significant reset of the DC cinematic universe after the failure of Justice League and the mixed response to Zack Snyder’s earlier SnyderVerse.

However, with the Warner Bros./Discovery merger in 2022, Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy took over the DC reins. This is where the aforementioned second ending scene for The Flash came in. With Cavill was primed for a cameo in Black Adam, which was supposed to mark the beginning of his triumphant return to the DCEU after years away, the pair wanted him to appear.

The report also states De Luca and Abdy also saw value in preserving Calle’s character. At the same time, Wonder Woman 3 was in development, under the keen eye of filmmaker Patty Jenkins. Taking all of that into account, it’s easy to see why Warner Bros. opted to use The Flash‘s ending scene as a means of setting up future installments with Gadot, Cavill, Calle, and Keaton’s characters.

However, when James Gunn and Peter Safran came on-board as DC Studios’ co-chairmen and CEOs, they carried with them fresh visions for the DC universe, which inevitably clashed with the existing trajectory. Gunn and Safran reportedly recognized that featuring Cavill and Gadot in the new ending could potentially mislead fans, promising narratives that were not on their drawing board.

In the first wave of their overhaul, they pulled the plug on Cavill’s Superman film, with the subsequent announcement that a new Superman movie would lead the DC Universe reset (that being the Gunn-directed Superman: Legacy in 2025). After that, reports of Patty Jenkins’ departure surfaced, with the revelations that Jenkins’ vision of Wonder Woman 3 would not be going ahead. Gal Gadot’s future as the character is unclear at this point.

As the dust settled on these seismic shifts, a daring proposition surfaced, one that would have the world buzzing – the return of George Clooney as Bruce Wayne, a twist no one saw coming. It was a humorous way to keep the idea of the original ending scene without having characters that wouldn’t return in the future. That doesn’t mean we’ll see Clooney again either, but it does drive home the fact that The Flash‘s ever-changing timeline can produce new faces for The Dark Knight, setting the stage for a new actor to take over.

For those who remember, Clooney was Batman in Joel Schumacher’s infamous Batman & Robin, a 1997 film that’s often (mistakenly, might I add) declared one of the worst superhero films in history.