This post contains spoilers for The Flash.
The controversy over The Flash continues. Just ahead of its dismal release weekend, leaked footage (that was quickly taken down with a copyright complaint) revealed more of its multiverse of cameos that includes digital recreations of deceased actors George Reeves, Christopher Reeve, and Adam West during its climax. Social media has taken notice.
Me, watching #TheFlash blatantly disrespect Christopher Reeve, George Reeves, and Adam West by bringing them back for a tasteless and grotesque cameos via CGI movie necromancy: pic.twitter.com/6B5wtWpEe9
— Ely (@elympus_mons) June 17, 2023
Hearing there’s a George Reeves cameo in The Flash, everyone involved in this film’s production should be prosecuted
— Max (@EPM106) June 16, 2023
It’s absolutely ridiculous that The Flash is a movie about letting go of the past, but it’s so in love with its own cheap nostalgia bait: the parade of immoral, dead-eyed cameos. That thematic betrayal makes it worse than every bad superhero movie of the last half century. https://t.co/tZqVOld4bZ
— Jeff Zhang 张佶润 (@strangeharbors) June 16, 2023
The Flash is awful. Genuinely.
A boring movie with a premise you’ve seen a million times done better, that does nothing but use the worst CG you’ve ever seen to bastardize everything that has come before it, and make some truly disgusting brief cameos of actors that have passed. pic.twitter.com/iuqoDeWThI
— jacob. (@jtimsuggs) June 16, 2023
Using the likenesses of Reeves and Reeve for an uncanny valley of nostalgic fan service is seen as particularly disrespectful by many fans. George Reeves — who played the first-ever TV Man of Steel on the 1950s series The Adventures of Superman — committed suicide in 1959 at the age of 45 allegedly because of the career struggles he endured that have been attributed to taking the role.
Wait a f**king minute, they CGI’d George Reeves into The Flash?
On the 63rd anniversary of his suicide that occurred b/c George was depressed over his career being ruined thru typecasting BECAUSE HE WAS SUPERMAN?!
Yeah, Warner Brothers and Andy Muschietti can f**k off with that! pic.twitter.com/ocAsISLJEi— Kevin D. Grüssing (Pronounced Grew-sing) (@KevDGrussing) June 17, 2023
George Reeves allegedly committed suicide over career struggles after Superman, a role he openly DID NOT want to reprise.#TheFlash defiles his likeliness for a flyby senseless CGI cameo so audiences can cheer at the film – one that releases on the anniversary of his death. pic.twitter.com/NcsMoBisSz
— TomMCJL (@TomMCJL) June 16, 2023
George Reeves is easily the worst of the “cameos” in the flash. Knowing that his career and life was ruined due to being associated with and being typecasted as Superman. The fact they use it as some kind of nostalgia pull is truly vile and disgusting. pic.twitter.com/agvsweVqTz
— Aidan BLM. (@jokergatack) June 16, 2023
Others speculated that Christopher Reeve, who died at 52 in 2004, would have loathed the lingering shot of his Superman, whom he played in four films in the ‘70s and ‘80s beginning with 1978’s Superman: The Movie. Multiple interviews have resurfaced of Reeve condemning Hollywood’s “very bad disease called sequelitis” and his distaste for recurring roles for the paycheck, prioritizing the “integrity of your work.”
The irony of this… Warner Brothers did exactly what Christopher Reeve hated.. he would’ve HATED the idea of his cameo in The Flash pic.twitter.com/ABLUin9hrX
— Teej (@UsUnitedJustice) June 14, 2023
Putting this Christopher Reeve interview from the 1980s back in circulation now that Warner Bros. Discovery is using a CGI version of him in The Flash pic.twitter.com/7t5r56cnMv
— John Frankensteiner (@JFrankensteiner) June 17, 2023
Fans have also offered a reasonable, more respectful suggestion to Reeve: Brandon Routh, who donned the red cape in 2006’s Superman Returns, intended as an homage/sequel to the 1978 film.
If they truly wanted Christopher Reeves’s Superman to show up in The Flash (but why though?!) couldn’t they have just… brought in Brandon Routh?
He literally plays the same iteration of the character that Reeves does!! Superman Returns is a sequel to those original films!
— Louis (???+???)✨ (@LewisZebra) June 14, 2023
The flash had so many options for ways to RESPECTFULLY do that cameo
I.e.
Using Brandon routh
Asking Christopher Reeves son who looks a whole lot like him to do it
He’ll even a faceless cameo using old audio or one using remastered old footage would’ve been more morally sound— H (@shipperofstuff) June 14, 2023
Among the many returning Batmen who appear in the movie — Michael Keaton, Nic Cage, and George Clooney — The Flash also featured Adam West, who played the caped crusader in the ABC series Batman that ran from 1966 to 1968 and the 1966 film called Batman. West died in 2017 at 88 years old.
Wait, does CGI Adam West actually appear in The Flash, along with CGI Christopher Reeve? pic.twitter.com/Ie0AJGaCgo
— Jay ??? (@J_Onaka) June 14, 2023
Adam West seeing his terrible CGI in The Flash pic.twitter.com/rmIF7eMLiB
— Blake Garman (@FrostedBlakes34) June 17, 2023
Ok but jokes aside, the Batman stuff was EASILY the best thing about The Flash.
Just keep Andy away from any VFX Team and put a spell on Adam West’s Grave so he can’t get near it again and he might cook. pic.twitter.com/YEcmpSGlIq
— Hernandy (@Pollos_Hernandy) June 16, 2023
A large part of the backlash comes from the film essentially using deepfakes to not just bring back dead actors to the screen, but for people who could have easily shown up on set, including Teddy Sears, who starred in The CW’s The Flash.
“People kept telling me that I was in the new Flash movie…,” Sears told TV Line. “I mean, I’m sleep-deprived with a newborn at home, so my memory is a little foggy. But I’m pretty sure I would have remembered shooting a major DC Studios film.”
Deepfakes are very specifically made using machine learning technology. Without a full visual effects breakdown it’s hard to say whether the Flash used deepfake tech, but considering that’s what is emerging as the industry standard for this stuff, it probably was, in fact, AI.
— Logan! (@KatzeKyru) June 17, 2023
I’m so out of the loop of the flash movie stuff cause I have no interest in it but this is kinda a big deal to use deepfake/CGI without consent. It should be setting off alarm bells even if it’s just for a 5 second cameo or whatever this kinda thing is going to end up in court https://t.co/xh7KuEkd4X
— Katie? (@Yayxlife) June 19, 2023
so much catharsis knowing that the flash is shaping up to be a huge flop because with any luck it sends a message about those cgi abomination ghoulish dead people deepfake cameos and also that it’ll definitely make dc stop protecting ezra miller
— Fern (@clawedkellas) June 18, 2023
This is in addition to the fact that that these digital cameos, which was done by pulling archival footage and utilizing AI tech, just look bad.
Deepfakes are very specifically made using machine learning technology. Without a full visual effects breakdown it’s hard to say whether the Flash used deepfake tech, but considering that’s what is emerging as the industry standard for this stuff, it probably was, in fact, AI.
— Logan! (@KatzeKyru) June 17, 2023
3/4 of these look better than the flash and none of them used said cgi to deep fake beloved dead actors. https://t.co/9TGwlG2cyA
— Swordsman of the Day (@swordsmanday) June 17, 2023
In an interview with GamesRadar, director Andy Muschietti said there was “total freedom” when it came to these cameos. “As long as they were DC characters, everything was allowed. And I made a list of superheroes that I love, that I would love to see, and it was a long list. And then, for time matters, for pacing, we had to shortlist that a little bit. The movie is the result of that shortlist, but I’m pretty thrilled by the superheroes that we gather.”
For some reason, Kevin Smith defended the decision to include these cameos in an interview with Rolling Stone.
“It didn’t bother me all,” Smith said. “I thought it was just a really nice homage to the past. It didn’t feel like an insult. […] Some people are like, ‘Yeah, but they’re not alive to say yes or no.’ And you know, I don’t know any actor who would be like, ‘Don’t use my image when I’m dead.’ Like, you don’t go into this business to try to be shy, right? You want to be seen. And, look, I’ll give the world permission right now. When I’m fucking dead, you can literally do anything to my image or to Silent Bob in a movie. Anything you want.”
Leanna Butkovic is a freelance writer at IGN.
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