Last night, Variety published an exclusive report wherein they revealed that The Flash is going to get a “page one rewrite.” This means that the previous iterations of the script have been totally thrown out and they’re starting from scratch. For anyone who’s been following the progress of the film this should probably come as no surprise, as there’ve clearly been a lot of issues behind the scenes as the studio figures out what direction they want to go in with The Flash.

The Flash is set to be one of the films that lives within the WB’s DC Extended Universe (DCEU), and will focus on Ezra Miller’s version of Barry Allen- whom we met in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, glimpsed in Suicide Squad, and shall see again in this year’s Justice League. And yet the studio has had an incredibly hard time getting The Flash off to the races. 

Early last year, Seth Grahame-Smith departed the project after having been hired to write and direct it. Grahame-Smith’s script was left behind and was still thought of as the basis for whatever an eventual The Flash film would be. Then Dope director Rick Famuyiwa signed on and took his own pass at the script, adding his own revisions to Grahame-Smith’s work. He sent it to the studio…and almost exactly a month later he was also gone.

After that, all eyes were on who might be the third person to sit in The Flash‘s director’s chair. But perhaps the focus shouldn’t have been so much on the director, but rather on the script- since both Grahame-Smith and Famuyiwa left the project over creative differences, meaning that something is up with the movie on a fundamental level.

According to Variety, Warner Bros. has tapped Joby Harold to do a total rewrite of The Flash based on their satisfaction with his work on Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of The Sword.

Some of you may wonder why they’d go the route of “script first/director later,” considering they’re having so much trouble getting and keeping a director on The Flash. Wouldn’t it make sense to have a director lined up who can be there to help shape the project from scratch?

And now here’s where we enter…

The Bochinche Zone:

So, a couple of months ago, we had a chance to speak with a source that’s very closely connected to The Flash. At that time, while Miller was out promoting Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them and saying he wasn’t worried about a delay for The Flash, we learned that Warner Bros. actually already had someone lined up to direct The Flash, but that they wouldn’t be announcing it just yet. We weren’t told who it was, just that there was definitely someone attached to direct.

This makes us wonder…

Might the reason that the relatively untested Harold has been assigned to rewrite The Flash be that Guy Ritchie is the director that’s waiting in the wings? It seems very possible that Ritchie, who has a fantastic relationship with Warner Bros. these days, told them that Harold should get the writer job because he liked what he did with King Arthur. Remember, Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes films are all for the WB, as was The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (which starred Superman himself, Henry Cavill, and rumored Green Lantern frontrunner Armie Hammer), and King Arthur is also a Warner Bros. joint.

Also, when you look at his upcoming schedule, he’s only rumored to be directing a couple of films. Nothing definite. This would mean that Ritchie is wiiiide open right now.

So our official speculation on the matter is that Ritchie has a handshake deal with Warner Bros. to direct The Flash, he’s tapped Harold to write it for him, and both sides will make things official once Harold’s script meets everyone’s standards.

Funny thing is Ritchie has come up on our shortlists before with regard to The Flash, as he may have just the right skill set to make an exciting, unpredictable, funny, and action-packed DC movie. 

And just remember all this as you go around the net and read all the reports about The Flash not having a director: There’s definitely a man in the shadows, just waiting for the stars to align before an announcement can be made, and we think it’s Guy Ritchie.

READ ALSO: “Rumor Report Card: WONDER WOMAN, GREEN LANTERN, More“

[SOCIAL MEDIA SIDE-NOTE: A while ago, I launched a secondary twitter account exclusively for LRM-related tweets. It’s the one linked at the bottom of this report. It’s only got like 80 followers on it because I think you guys think it’s just a place where I re-post LRM links. Well, it’s going to become where I drop some Bochinche on the regular, so please go Follow it, as seeing only 80 followers totally bums me out.]

SOURCE: Variety