Billy Crudup’s had a strange old career. The actor broke through, after impressive stage work, in “Sleepers” two decades ago, and immediately became one of Hollywood’s hottest properties, cementing that with a memorable turn in “Almost Famous.” But he’s one of those actors who seemed to resist stardom, reportedly turning down the chance to play Christopher Nolan’s Batman in favor of stage and indie work.
That said, he has done the occasional blockbuster work, in things like “Mission Impossible 3” and “Watchmen,” but in general has shifted into character work in recent years, with an excellent recent run taking in “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” “Spotlight” and “Jackie,” with Mike Mills’ “20th Century Women,” “Alien: Covenant” and Naomi Watts Netflix series “Gypsy” coming up. And now, it looks like he’s going back to superhero fare, as Variety report that Crudup has joined the cast of Rick Famuyiwa’s upcoming DC Movie-verse pic “The Flash.”
The trade reports that Crudup is in talks to play the father of Ezra Miller’s super-speedy Barry Allen, with Kiersey Clemons also on board as Iris West. For a long time, Allen’s father wasn’t a hugely important figure in Flash canon, but a recent comics retool saw him having been convicted for the murder of his wife (a murder that may have actually been committed by a supervillain). Given that it was DC Films boss Geoff Johns who wrote that storyline, and the general darkness of the DC world, we wouldn’t be surprised to see elements of that story retained. Then again, things are meant to be lightening up in DC world, so who knows.
Whatever way around, we like the casting of Crudup and Miller as father and son, and we’re always happy to see the actor in work. Phil Lord and Chris Miller wrote the story, Seth Graeme-Smith the script and production will start later this year, with the movie opening on March 16th, 2018. Fingers crossed we get to see Crudup’s glowing blue dick like in “Watchmen.”