Dope director Rick Famuyiwa zooms in to direct the Flash movie

By Sam Barsanti | June 2, 2016 | 8:29pm

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In the months since Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice carved a path of destruction through everyone’s hopes for the still-nascent DC Cinematic Universe, the superhero movie department at Warner Bros. has gone through some big behind-the-scenes changes. Back in May, DC Comics’ favorite son Geoff Johns and Warner Bros. exec Jon Berg were put in charge of DC Films, and in April, Seth Grahame-Smith dropped out of the solo Flash movie over “creative differences.” It’s unclear if the two shake-ups are directly related, but it’s clear that Warner Bros. is willing to make changes if it needs to. Either way, Deadline is now reporting that Dope director Rick Famuyiwa has been tapped to replace Grahame-Smith on The Flash.

Famuyiwa is typically an indie filmmaker, with decidedly non-superhero movies like Brown Sugar and HBO’s Confirmation on his resume. But the Deadline story says that he “provided a vision that would resonate with young viewers, and that vision was very compatible with the script.” Speaking of, the script was written by Grahame-Smith from a treatment by proven hitmakers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, so it’s understandable that Warner Bros. would want to stick with that.