The Flash’s Alternate Endings Revealed Alongside How That Cameo Came to Be

Major Spoilers ahead for The Flash!

The Flash had one of the most secretive endings in recent memory, and a new report shares how it came to be, what the alternate versions were, and how that cameo happened.

As reported by THR, one of the biggest moments from The Flash is when George Clooney’s Bruce Wayne walks out of a car instead of Ben Affleck’s version, confirming that Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen didn’t quite set everything right in his attempt to fix his time-traveling adventures that began with the hope of saving his mom.

This is a big deal for many reasons, including that Clooney had previously said he does not look fondly at his time as the legendary DC hero in 1997’s Batman & Robin.

“The truth of the matter is, I was bad in it,” Clooney told Howard Stern back in 2020. Akiva Goldsman — who’s won the Oscar for writing since then — he wrote the screenplay. And it’s a terrible screenplay, he’ll tell you. I’m terrible in it, I’ll tell you. Joel Schumacher, who just passed away, directed it, and he’d say, ‘Yeah, it didn’t work.’ We all whiffed on that one.”

As if it wasn’t impressive enough that Clooney agreed to return, what is perhaps more shocking is that the whole thing came together in only a few weeks and was the third planned ending for a film that went through multiple regime changes during its development.

The Fascinating Road to The Flash’s Ending

While director Andy Muschietti made it to the finish line, the execs above him weren’t so lucky. It all began with a Warner Bros. Pictures run by Toby Emmerich and a DC Films headed by Walter Hamada, and much of the film’s shooting and post-production was done while they were running the ship.

The Flash was meant to serve as a reset of sorts to the DCEU and would be followed up with a sequel and then another film inspired by Crisis on Infinite Earths. At the end of the original film, Sasha Calle’s Supergirl and Michael Keaton’s Batman were the ones who showed up at the courthouse after Barry Allen’s father was exonerated.

This is obviously not a huge departure from the ending that made it to the final cut with Clooney, and it still signified to Barry and all of us that everything was not back to normal. It is, however, possibly a happier ending for those who loved Calle and Keaton as they at least were never killed by General Zod in this new timeline.

Unfortunately for those who like the idea of that ending, it was all shaken up when Discovery acquired Warner Bros. in 2022 and Emmerich and Hamada were told to exit stage right. While Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav was searching for a new head of DC, Michael De Luca and Pamel Abdy stepped in.

Under their watch, the direction of The Flash’s ending changed and would now see Calle’s Supergirl and Keaton’s Batman joined by Henry Cavill’s Superman and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. There were many reasons for these decisions, including a set up for the future that was glimpsed with Cavill’s Black Adam cameo and the promise of a new Wonder Woman movie from Patty Jenkins.

Despite that ending being shot in September 2022, it did not last for very long as another huge shakeup would soon follow when it was announced James Gunn and Peter Safran would be taking over as co-CEOs of DC Studios.

Things changed quickly from there and the ending formed by De Luca and Abdy didn’t fit into the plans of Gunn and Safran as the world would soon learn that Cavill would not be returning as Superman and Jenkins would no longer be developing a third Wonder Woman film.

With all that in mind, Gunn and Safran began searching for a new ending that would still keep much of what the original idea was. In a bit of a long-shot idea, Clooney’s return as Bruce Wayne was brought up.

Gunn and Safran reached out to Clooney’s agent at CAA, Bryan Lourd, and showed him an unfinished cut of the film. As it turned out, both Lourd and Clooney liked it and the actor agreed to join the project.

As a result, Clooney was back on set on the Warners lot in January 2022 for a “quick shoot” as Bruce Wayne for the first time in 26 years. Miller was also there and spent some time with Clooney, who is said to have given the actor “advice about handling being in the public eye and behaving in public.”

This ending was so secret that it was never screen tested and certain cuts of the film showed at CinemaCon stopped before Clooney was revealed. Press screenings during the week of June 4 were the first time the ending was seen outside the studio, and the only other time it was shown was at the film’s one premiere on June 12.

After that long road, The Flash and Clooney’s ending are finally out in the world and in theaters. In our The Flash review, we said it “may have an unwieldy third act and indulges in too much unearned fan service, but that doesn’t stop it from being an entertaining and earnest DC superhero film.”

Unfortunately, it is not off to the fastest start as The Flash only earned $55.1 million domestically and $139 million globally in its opening weekend on a roughly $200 million production budget.

For more on The Flash, check out every other cameo in the movie, our explainer of the ending and post-credits scene, and our look at how time travel works in the latest DC film.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.