With the success of Arrow, showrunner Greg Berlanti feels more pressure to do better for his another project. The Flash CW Series is one of the most anticipated shows this fall. The DC comic-book based series, which will star Grant Gustin as Barry Allen, is a spin-off of the Stephen Amell starrer. Thus, it didn’t have problem reaching the awareness of viewers.
For Berlanti, one thing he thought when he received the go signal to do Arrow and The Flash on TV is, don’t screw it up.
In an interview with Comicbook.com, he was asked what was on his mind “when you're adapting something like this with a long history?”
He replied:
“Not screwing it up I think is the most important part of it. The positive way of saying that is, the most successful version of it is, when I get to the end of it if my mom, my dad, my sister -- if people who didn't read the comics the way that I did -- watch the episode and they get the same feeling that I got when I would read the comic books, then I've done my job right.
So it means we can make changes in terms of elements of the character but at the core, they have to have the experience that I got when I read Crisis on Infinite Earths.”
Another topic that Berlanti tackled during the interview is how the 1990 TV series The Flash would affect their work.
He said:
“We were all fans of it. I had only rewatched the pilot and then maybe one other episode, I think and I knew John from Dawson's Creek. We all knew we wanted him to be part of it in some way because we were such fans.
I think we were mindful of that I know it was really challenging for them to maintain the level of visual effects and things even at that time, and we knew kind of going out that was something that we had to be extra mindful of both with the pilot and now in production of the series, in how we're going to pull that off every week.”
Interestingly, John Wesley Shipp, who played the titular role 24 years ago is also included in The Flash CW Series wherein he will play as the father of Barry Allen. Also included in the show is Amanda Pays who will reprise her role from the 1990 series as Dr. Christina "Tina" McGee.
