EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros has found its director for its feature The Flash starring Ezra Miller. The studio has chosen Rick Famuyiwa, the up-and-coming director who on the feature front most recently helmed the Sundance pic Dope, which he scripted. He will step in and direct the film that Warner Bros has slotted for release on March 16, 2018. Miller is in starmaking mode at the studio in the Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and also had a cameo in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and will appear in The Justice League Part One. They will work out a deal quickly.

Famuiywa is receiving strong Emmy-season buzz for directing Confirmation, the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas HBO drama that stars Kerry Washington and Wendell Pierce as the two principal characters.

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The Flash script is written by Seth Grahame-Smith, who originally was going to make his helming debut but exited the project over creative differences. Grahame-Smith’s take on the iconic DC Entertainment superhero is based on a treatment by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the Lego Movie duo that once expected to helm the picture. Warner Bros is looking for the right chemical mix on its superhero picture line based on the DC Comics heroes that started with Batman V Superman, and the feeling internally was that Famuyiwa provided a vision that would resonate with young viewers and that vision was very compatible with the script that the studio is moving toward the starting gate with. That vision was executed to strong reviews in Dope, the 2015 film about a young geek trying to survive in a tough Los Angeles neighborhood.

It is a big opportunity for Famuyiwa, whose résumé so far has been small distinctive indies like The Wood, Brown Sugar, and Our Family Wedding. He’ll be playing in a much bigger pond now. Famuyiwa is repped by WME, Oasis and attorney Gordon M. Bobb.