Video: ‘The Flash’ | Anatomy of a Scene

“I’m Andy Muschietti, and I’m the director of ‘The Flash.’ O.K., so this is part of the opening of the movie. It’s a scene where Barry Allen is summoned. Barry Allen is played in this movie by the great Ezra Miller. He gets a call from Alfred to come to Gotham, because he needs to assist Batman.” “Alfred. You hear that? That’s my stomach.” “And he’s arriving late to work. And ironically, he’s being the fastest man alive, he arrives late everywhere. This is something that all the fans know very well. So in the original script, there was a scene with a volcano. I thought that we needed something a little stronger to start with. So I came up with this scene where a bunch of babies are thrown into the void. And Flash has to do something about it. What I wanted is to put our superhero to a test. I wanted to put his superpowers to the test, and basically explaining that even if you are the fastest man alive, you can have trouble saving different people at the same time. So what happens is basically, he has to save nine babies that are not only falling. But also because he didn’t have breakfast, his calories are going down. So everything starts to speed up. That’s the other narrative gimmick that we’re having, that we’re basically seeing the events from his perspective. And when he’s in full energy, everything seems to be frozen in time. But when his calories go down, meaning that he doesn’t have fuel enough to be at the top of his capacities, everything starts to get faster. And this is what he does.” [BABY CRYING] “We think he’s going to go for the baby.” [BABY WAILING] “And instead, he goes and destroys a vending machine with the objective of getting enough calories to get his powers back.” [INTENSE MUSIC PLAYING] “But it definitely sets up a superhero that is vulnerable, that even though he has superpowers, he’s not invincible. And he has to basically recur to his intelligence and his human criteria and judgment, not only on his superpowers.” [WHOOSHING] [BANGING] “I really wanted Ezra to play all the shots where they are portraying Flash in the scene. And they were very eager to do the stunts as well. So basically every time that you see Ezra on the scene, it’s a practical moment. Obviously when you’re in post-production, you have to make some decisions that basically favor a more spectacular version of the shot, in which you have to go full CG. But in most scenes that you see Barry, it’s Ezra performing it with, of course, a set extension that is digital. So Ezra was hanging on wires during a lot of days to basically bring this scene to life, with that nurse hanging on wires. And no baby was harmed in the production of this scene, and voila.” [BABIES CRYING] [WOMAN SCREAMING]