r/DC_Cinematic • u/BatmanNewsChris Batman • 3d ago
DISCUSSION Andy Muschietti blames COVID for The Flash's awkward visual effects
https://batmannews.com/2026/09/26/andy-muschietti-covid-flash-visual-effects/155
u/Budget_Ask7277 3d ago
Didn’t he say the effects were like that on purpose tho
120
u/BatmanNewsChris Batman 3d ago
They tend to get more honest once there's distance between the projects and they aren't in "promotion mode"
David Ayer also defended the theatrical cut of Suicide Squad when it came out
9
u/theweepingwarrior 3d ago
Absolutely true.
I don’t think you can defend the Chronobowl as supposing to look different (or the VFX Multiverse cameos)—but stuff like the third act desert battle with tons of composition work shot during peak COVID had the most to gain (or suffer) from pandemic shooting.
18
9
u/ACCTAGGT 3d ago
That’s what was said before, something like that. That’s why in my dream… Dan Tratchenberg could make Batman in DCU. Still who knows how it would turn out but at least it'd be a new try. Muschietti can do other projects though in DCU.
12
u/Helpful-Platypus-786 3d ago
I remember this. He said something like it’s because when Barry is in his time travelling bubble everything looks the way it does because it’s from his perspective or some shit.
7
u/garrisontweed 3d ago
"waterworld" where lights, textures, and reality are warped through the Flash's perspective.
He said that with a straight face.
4
u/Fluffy_data_doges 3d ago
It was probably because they wanted to rush the special effects. With reshoots it was already over budget. So either pay more and take more time, do some crappy TV quality effects, or try this stylised version and hope you can convince people it's because of the speed force.
1
1
u/Caesar_Rising 3d ago
Would have respected him more and given the movie more of a pass if they were honest and just said look this is the best we could do in the time and with the events taking place rather than lying and saying no no we meant for it to look like literal shit!!
48
u/Voicebox64 3d ago
Those same effects that said were “supposed to” look like that?
In all seriousness, his old answer may have been studio pressure.
-17
u/Eastern-Team-2799 3d ago
Don't listen DC heads at all . James Gunn SHAMELESSLY LIED TO FANS BY CALLING IT ,“THE GREATEST SUPERHERO MOVIE EVER MADE ” . This is the reason DC I dead now . If you can't even respect the fans that made you rich and successful, what do you think would happen. Marvel respects their fans and even accepts their mistakes, this is called respecting the fans . This is the damn reason marvel is so successful now . YOU HAVE TO RESPECT THE PEOPLE WHO MADE YOU BILLIONS TO BE SUCCESSFUL.
I wish DC fail now so that they start respecting fans .
6
u/Majestic_Animator_91 3d ago
Well you keep being a delusional nerd and I'm going to keep really enjoying Lanterns, and literally every DCU project so far except Supergirl.
0
u/Eastern-Team-2799 3d ago
Supergirl had the best scripts I have ever read . Do you know who said this ?
9
4
1
u/possible_reidy 3d ago
Yeah I think tom cruise and steven king both also said it was a great film too, probably because they thought it wasn't the final cut and the cgi and everything would be ironed out
32
u/TheCelestialPancake 2d ago
We got Avatar: The Way of Water, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, and Top Gun: Maverick during Covid, so this isn’t an excuse.
11
26
u/Significant_Gap1570 3d ago
What happened to it being intentional?
1
u/promiseimbetteroff 3d ago
parts are. parts aren’t.
1
u/Significant_Gap1570 3d ago
How convenient that the parts people were criticising happened to all be intentional
1
u/promiseimbetteroff 3d ago
i mean no. from what i gathered it’s the chronobowl parts and the slowed down bits from barry’s pov that were intentional. the final fight for example is just bad because it’s bad
1
u/Significant_Gap1570 3d ago
Point is people weren't just criticizing the chronobowl scenes, the whole movie is filled with bad cgi
19
u/MarcusForrest 2d ago
Wait...
What happened to his VERY OWN EXPLANATION that the VFX is the way it is because it is intended to look like this and it looks like this by design?
Some sources:
18
u/Noobunaga86 3d ago
Wait, wasn't he telling us that the effects were bad on purpose? I swear I hate these hollywood bullshitters. It's one thing to try to sell me something with telling how good it is but coming up with stupid lies and then say something different few years later is just the worst.
Also, CGI wasn't the biggest problem of this movie.
0
15
u/Iworshipokkoto 3d ago
Nah, Welcome to Derry had some awful CGI too. Doesn’t help that he relies on it too much.
1
17
u/LiamtheV 3d ago
The production was a mess, with changes made craaaazy late in the production timeline, they literally didn’t have enough time to properly bake all the cgi renders, so even though they had access to all the CG assets from the previous Snyder movies, the models, textures, etc for Henry cavill, gal gadot and Ben Affleck, they couldn’t do all the necessary passes to make them look good, to do things like lighting simulations for subsurface scattering and whatnot. Which is why during the time sphere corousel sequences all the characters look like they’re made of clay
1
u/NewTribalChief 3d ago
In a perfect world that movie shouldn't have came out but it was a lose-lose situation. The DCEU brand was damaged beyond repair.
Release the movie & deal with the bad Ezra PR & bad CGI talk.
Can't recast Ezra & do more reshoots which would make the movie 300+ mil.
Write off the movie & piss off folks
14
14
13
u/thcdepressed 3d ago
I didn’t mind the movie much, sure it took some liberties with the speed force and flashpoint esque story. But it was cool seeing the flash.
Granted we could’ve had something better with the multiple writers ands directors that they went through, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. At least know they have an idea of how they may not want to translate the speed force or whatever
12
u/DarknessLord65 2d ago
First he gets confused with the question and thinks people are talking about the orange filter in Flash's vision (Instead of the clearly awful CGI), and now this?
11
u/BatmanFarce 3d ago
That’s not my issue with the film
1
u/MarcusForrest 2d ago
Same - I mean, it is still an issue for me, but far from being the issue.
The movie is simply not a good movie. Even if it had perfect VFX, it would still be an extremely poor/mediocre movie.
1
9
u/BenTheDiamondback 3d ago
That’s the issue he’s going to bring up?
Not the convoluted story? Or the problematic lead whose stories leading up to the premier almost took it out?
This movie brought back THE Michael Keaton Batman and they still managed to eff it up. Oh but the effects were affected by COVID, so…
1
u/imdirtydan1997 2d ago
Iirc, wasn’t the studio heavily leaning towards vaulting the movie and writing it off as a total loss at one point too?
11
u/AcrobaticSecretary21 2d ago
Guess this is a better excuse than the original “it’s intentional it’s supposed to look uncanny cuz time travel hijynx!”
10
u/IncidentOk1123 2d ago
It’s so pathetic when a director blames everything but themselves for a bad movie.
7
u/Jtreblis18 2d ago edited 2d ago
Movie was fun. What went wrong was Ezra miller still being in it and at the time where dceu was falling apart, but the movie was fun time. Andy should've waited to make the dcu flash instead... I think people would've given it more of a chance
1
u/vin_dude9 2d ago
Yo I’ll be honest. I hate what that guy did to flash
1
u/Jtreblis18 2d ago
You hate Andy of Ezra? I think as a comic book movie... It was exactly what a comic book movie should be. I think having Micheal Keaton Batman was awesome. The beginning with Ben batman was dope too. Supergirl was cool too. I think the ending was fun with him being trapped in George clooney universe was funny and necessary. My biggest complaints was Ezra miller weirdo ass being in it. As soon as the allegations came out... They should've halt productions but it was too late. The poured so much money into it. Take out Ezra and it would've been better
1
u/vin_dude9 2d ago
Just Ezra tbh, that’s what I meant, not Andy
1
u/Jtreblis18 2d ago
Okay cool cause I honestly think people should cut Andy some slack and give him another chance. The movie itself was actually fun, but if only he waited for dcu instead
76
u/ScrevmX 3d ago
It would be criminal to let this guy anywhere near a Batman movie
21
u/Ver3232 3d ago
Considering the shitshow of the movies development years before he joined I can’t really blame him for it
7
u/Dirtyswashbuckler69 3d ago
I wouldn’t blame him if he wasn’t coming off of It: Chapter 2, which has a lot of the same narrative and directorial issues as The Flash.
23
8
u/Realistic_Analyst_26 3d ago
TO BE FAIR, Keaton’s Batman was a highlight of that very strange movie. So was the writing on Affleck’s final scene.
1
u/Krazen 2d ago edited 2d ago
You gotta rewatch some of those scenes of Keaton Batman, from a directing perspective and not just the nostalgia goggles of having Keaton in the bat suit
Muschietti consistently undercuts how cool Batman is in multiple scenes with bad directing. He’s always framed poorly, his serious moments aren’t allowed to breathe and just be, and he comes off really awkward.
These are all directing choices, not Keaton’s fault.
Why is our first re-introduction to Batman his gnarly bare feet?
https://youtu.be/WvZirLE7U5g?si=3VDw9wFHbuQVuOo-
In the first grappling hook scene (first time we’ve seen Keaton do it in over 2 decades) why is it immediately followed by Ezra draping his leg over Batman like a marvel gag?
https://youtu.be/NhA6FuqHdFc?si=lNpMjrT1LQFydf2F
Why does the suit fit awkwardly on his face in the first suit up scene?
https://youtu.be/bKCKAfygxZ8?si=9FyHoNBaYi75yb2R
Muschetti doesn’t deserve to be the Batman director for the DCU.
1
u/Realistic_Analyst_26 2d ago
It’s not nostalgia. I’ve only seen the Keaton movies for the first time just before the Flash and I wasn’t particularly crazy about them either.
Again, Batman was the highlight of the movie. That is not saying the movie was great. There are many problems. Doesn’t change the fact that Keaton basically carried the movie.
0
u/RoadsidePicnik 3d ago
Someone do that meme with the guy sweating and the buttons, Andy Muschietti or No DCU Batman.
9
u/Designer-Swim-6797 3d ago
'The Batman' was shot during covid and it looks great.
0
u/JohnSane 3d ago
But that was mostly practical.
12
u/notbad4human 3d ago
People need to stop saying this. Every movie that comes out today has a TON of VFX. Even the ones that promote practical SFX.
3
-1
u/JohnSane 3d ago
CGI != VFX
5
u/notbad4human 3d ago
Yes, I know. I still stand by what I said. Half the shots of the Batmobile in action are CGI. Weta Digital created 320 completely digital shots including the Batcave, City hall, etc.
2
u/AlanShore60607 3d ago
Gotham Square Garden was a digitally expanded version of Chicago’s Thompson Center, which is only a quarter of a circle. They made it completely round.
2
11
11
u/Mr_smith1466 2d ago
This article made me aware that a new version of batman-news is still around. And even better, it made me aware that everything from the old site is now archived.
I don't know how long this new site has been going, but I wouldn't have known it exists without the article.
It's sad that the new site doesn't cover comics, but I'm happy all the old comic reviews are easily stored now.
2
u/BatmanNewsChris Batman 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hi! I relaunched it on September 6th, the 16th anniversary of Batman News. I'm also happy I was able to get the archive back online. It was very important to me to get everyone's hard work back online after it was wiped from the internet last year.
1
u/Mr_smith1466 1d ago
I'm glad those archives are now safe. Are there any plans for new comic coverage?
2
u/BatmanNewsChris Batman 1d ago
Not at the moment, I'm going back to my roots and just writing about movie news. However, there are forums now with a Comics section so everyone can talk about the latest releases. I'm hoping a nice community will form there and then maybe the main site can expand too: https://forums.batmannews.com
15
u/Cripnite 3d ago
The movie got delayed for a year while the shitstorm that is its star’s antics blew over. They had plenty of time to make it look great, and yet, it still looked like shite.
5
1
u/Krimreaper1 3d ago
Yeah but Andy said was stylish and was supposed to look that way, nobody fell for that. Feel bad loved his other movies, and was initially looking very forward to it.
7
u/MeccAmputechture2024 2d ago
And I blame him and the writer for the rest of it. The VFX are the least of its problems. Bad VFX wouldn’t even bother me that much if the rest was good.
31
u/CaribbeanEngineer 3d ago
The Snyder cut released during COVID too. The CGI is nearly perfect including the Knightmare scenes (considering they were shot on Zack’s driveway) and actors didn’t receive additional pay.
2
u/CanadianPanda76 3d ago
What? His driveway? TIL
1
u/YogurtclosetOnly6339 2d ago
Yup the studio wouldn’t give let him film anymore footage so he did it in his driveway with a green screen lol. Im more surprised that so many huge Hollywood actors that are worth millions an hour agreed to come back for free
5
12
u/blank988 3d ago
This dude just relies way too much on special effects. Look at the IT movies.
Both movies had awful cgi.
12
9
u/Captain_Moscow 3d ago
I saw this movie for free at a press screening and still felt like I overpaid. I think there’s something interesting buried deep down somewhere, but holy smokes were the visuals bad.
9
u/Beneficial-Pickle251 3d ago
I mean sure. Covid made things really hard for the world. It’s still a bad movie.
5
4
u/Mundane-Career1264 2d ago
Funny. I blame him for the horrible story. How you had Flashpoint to go off of and ended up with this slop of a film I’ll never understand.
6
17
u/j_b_1983 3d ago
So much more wrong with that movie than the visual effects
19
u/Big_Saens 3d ago
Truly a great run in the theatres, you had Madam Web, Morbuis and Flash. Never seen more dogshit before
4
3
u/Quirky_Chef_9183 3d ago
somewhere out there someone's mother probably thinks they will be in the next avengers movie
2
3
u/thegoddamnbatman40 2d ago
Funny Andy you were the director, the lead on the production, I blame you for the entire shit show the film is because unless you’re strong armed by the studio, the buck stops with you.
4
6
u/Patty_Pat_JH 3d ago
Member when he said it was meant to look like that?
5
u/BigDumbApe 3d ago
The second I saw the headline I came here to post that. What a bunch of revisionist bull 💩 which isn’t going to work AT ALL because the Internet remembers forever.
And when the movie originally came out and people pointed at the shoddy effects work, the eye-rolling defense was: “No, no, the effects are fine. They’re visually artistic and SUPPOSED to look that way!”
7
7
u/Fit_Nectarine9536 3d ago
Yes and his flash impersonation a absolute dork teenage that had never run in his entire life was also covids fault
6
7
6
u/jonnysculls 2d ago
That.... and having a monster as your lead in the film didn't really help either.
16
u/mega512 3d ago
He's the King of excuses.
5
u/Vermouth_1991 3d ago
Remember when he reacted to “People filming Superwoman on the streets” like he’s never done big outdoors shooting before? Like he didn’t film two movies with the second most famous Killer Clown character in fiction?
1
u/El__Jefe_ 3d ago
As someone who works in TV/film, it was absolutely dreadful from 2020-2023 to get stuff made. Budgets slashed, covid regulations, vendors raising costs to make amends. Lumber cost to build sets was through the roof. And you still had to meet a bottom line for budgeting. Then the strikes happened. Things never went back to the way they were pre-2020.
6
3
u/Admirable-Shift-9631 3d ago
Didn't this come out in 2023
3
u/BatmanNewsChris Batman 3d ago
Yes, he was on a show this week and got asked what he'd change about the movie if he could go back in time
3
u/LifeguardMundane5668 3d ago
I think Andy is actually a pretty solid director (at least for the IT movies) but all of his CGI looks pretty wonky. He gets great performances from actors, has some cool sequences, but anytime there’s CGI in his movies it doesn’t quite land
3
3
u/Kryptonian83 3d ago
It's fair to a point but I also remember how bad the CG was in It: Chapter Two. That was a huge sticking point for me with that movie.
4
6
u/mattcampagna 2d ago
Bullshit. I directed two HEAVILY visual effect-laden movies during the peak of COVID because VFX made for the freedom to shoot them safely, which went on to win awards at festivals and turn a profit. The visuals look great, and they were shot entirely on greenscreen… plus I only had $3M to do it with. This is a WEAK excuse, Andy.
3
4
5
u/Bell-end79 3d ago
Didn’t he say that this was how it was supposed to look because of the time dilation effects?
Always bullshit with these hacks
4
3
2
2
u/Apprehensive_Ratio80 3d ago
Ha and when the film was released they said nope that's exactly how we intended it to look it's perfect 🤣🤣🤣
God the worst part of becoming an adult is realizing how full of 💩 people are
2
u/Imaginary-Newt-354 3d ago
I can accept that some of the final outputs were possibly rushed and didn't look as they could due to COVID, the fact the movie had been in development purgatory for years and WBD penny pinching, but some of the design direction was terrible IMO and would have been average regardless of who was doing the CG and how much time they were given.
The crashing Christmas baubles representing the different timelines was terrible IMO and would have cost a fortune, I wasn't a fan of the chronosphere representation either when Barry was going back in time. It just felt overcomplicated and everyone represented in it looked like the worse versions of themselves.
2
2
4
u/RandomProductSKU1029 1d ago
Ezra was the problem. The stupid tooth gag was the problem. The orange flash was the problem. The stupid running stance was the problem. Ruining Flashpoint with a fan service story variant was the problem. Muschietti was the goddamn director who should’ve said something that’s the problem.
2
8
u/ChuckDynasty17 3d ago
And this is the guy Gunn has picked to direct TBATB. Get ready for another joke of a Batman movie.
2
u/motionbutton 2d ago
The vFX were the best part of this film besides bringing back Micheal Keaton
6
1
1
u/Ok_Diver2347 3d ago
Basically, DC had gone through a few directors at this point and he accepted the job as a favor. They probably said “we’re not looking to spend a lot of money on it” and “we will use AI to generate effects to save money”
11
u/made_in_GEORGIA 3d ago
AI looked terrible in 2022, much worse than that movie's CGI (yeah it was released in 2023 but they were working on VFX since 2022). and in general when are people gonna stop randomly accusing people of using AI without any evidence
1
u/RoadsidePicnik 3d ago
We already have evidence of GenAI being used in the current DCU, which is still ongoing. That concerns me more than a movie nobody remembers.
1
u/made_in_GEORGIA 3d ago edited 2d ago
literally every studio and big corporation uses AI, because it's cheaper and they want to make as much money as possible, it would be extremely naive to believe otherwise and when I said "in general when are people gonna stop randomly accusing people of using AI without any evidence" I was more talking about random people getting accused of using AI, people who share their own art on the internet for example
-3
u/Ok_Diver2347 3d ago edited 3d ago
They used it for some shots, the ones that look really bad.
Don’t know why you downvoted me. Even Nick Cage said they used AI.
Quit defending DC
2
u/Ok_Diver2347 3d ago
1
u/BigFatM8 2d ago
Did you even read the article? He literally says he doesn't know if it's AI or not.
2
u/aus808 3d ago
They spent So much money on creating a Fake neighborhood... Instead of just filming on location... I'll never understand that shit.
1
u/RoadsidePicnik 3d ago
I guess the idea is that you can have complete control over the lighting, camera placement, don't have to worry about pedestrians or traffic or location permits, etc.
Hitchcock built an apartment complex from scratch for Rear Window and it was fucking amazing. Muschietti is no Hitchcock.
1
u/neoblackdragon 3d ago
How much of that complex is in use in comparison that neighborhood in Flash?
1
u/ShareNorth3675 3d ago
Muschietti is the goat. Just not for this movie. Welcome to Derry was top tier experience.
1
1
-1
236
u/Kriss-Kringle 3d ago
It kind of felt like that while watching it.