DC fans are raising their eyebrows at a recent red carpet event for the premiere of Clayface , the DCU villain film out on Oct. 23. The movie has positive early reactions, but that’s not the focus of the attention here. Rather, there are new snaps of James Gunn hanging out not with a DCU superhero, but a DC CW Arrowverse one, Grant Gustin, who played The Flash across nine seasons of the show from 2014 to 2023.

The obvious question here is whether or not this is a meetup that shouldn’t be read into (though obviously Gustin had to be specifically invited) or something more that could indicate casting consideration of a not-yet-assigned Justice League member, Barry Allen.

While it’s true that James Gunn has occasionally crossed paths with other CW stars in the past like Stephen Amell (Green Arrow) or Melissa Benoist (Supergirl), from what I can gather, that was before he took over the DCU and was in charge of casting all the heroes, and no instances were at a high-profile red carpet like this one. So yes, this does seem noteworthy.

While The Flash certainly had its ups (mostly early on) and downs (definitely later on), one refrain has always been that Grant Gustin was excellent as the central hero, and even before this, many have wondered if he could be called back to action as the new version of Barry in the DCU. Obviously, it would not be a CW universe crossover, it would have to be a new version. This would get pretty confusing, if you ask me, but I would never say no to more of Gustin’s Flash.

The DCEU cast Ezra Miller as The Flash, resulting in an enormous bomb that lost $200 million at the box office, and Miller was never terribly well-received in the role. A long time ago, John Wesley played The Flash in a 1990 CBS series. Paying tribute to the man and the role, The Flash had him come on board as Henry Allen and later Jay Garrick in the CW series.

Gustin has only appeared in a single movie since his tenure in The Flash ended, Puppy Love in 2023, but after nine years of playing a hero in a show that ran for 184 episodes, you can’t blame him for taking a break.

However, he’s not tired of the character. In multiple instances, Gustin has said that he’d play the role again and cited James Gunn specifically when asked about the DCU , “If James Gunn asked me to play The Flash, I would do it. I trust James Gunn,” he said.

There are two sides to this, one being that again, it would be kind of odd to take him off a nine-season CW series and throw him into the DCU as a same-but-different character, presumably without his supporting cast returning. In contrast, everyone loves Gustin as The Flash, apparently including James Gunn, and between yes and no, I think I know what most people would vote for.

Obviously, we cannot read too much into this, though it seems pretty obvious that Gustin and Gunn would know what would happen when they were photographed on the red carpet of a big DCU premiere together. I hope this comes to pass, but with no announced Flash projects on the horizon, we may be in for a long wait one way or another.

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