Flash Writers Say Their Scrapped Script Made Bruce Wayne an Aimless Non‑Batman

Overview

• John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein said Wednesday that their early Flash draft featured a Bruce Wayne who never became Batman and instead was an aimless billionaire thrust toward heroism.
• The pair said only one clear element of their version survived into the released movie: Barry Allen traveling with a slightly younger self.
• Christina Hodson later reworked Daley and Goldstein’s script, the writers received a story credit, and the final film instead included Michael Keaton’s Batman as a decisive production choice.
• Other creative teams also proposed very different takes on The Flash, with Phil Lord and Chris Miller confirming they developed a separate, elaborate treatment that did not match the 2023 release.
• The disclosures shed light on long-running studio rewrite dynamics for the DCEU and help explain why the 2023 film mixed nostalgia with a multiverse approach yet underperformed at the box office.