Arrow Scoop: Glee's Grant Gustin Tapped to Play the Flash!
Natalie Abrams 4 hours ago
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Grant Gustin, The Flash | Photo Credits: darrenhull.com,DC Entertainment
The CW has found its Flash.
Glee's
Grant Gustin has landed the role of Flash alter egoBarry Allen, who will appear on
Arrow before possibly heading up his own spin-off, TVGuide.com has learned.
The CW developing Arrow spin-off to feature the Flash
In the world of
Arrow, Barry is a Central City assistant police forensic investigator who arrives in Starling to look into a series of unexplained robberies that may have a connection to a tragedy in his past. A comic book fan boy, Barry is obsessed with the Arrow but unaware that working with Oliver and Felicity to solve the crime has brought him right into the dangerous world of the vigilante.
Barry will first appear in Episodes 8 and 9 of the second season of
Arrow before the backdoor pilot for the potential spin-off airs as Episode 20, all of which will be written by
Arrow executive producers
Greg Berlanti and
Andrew Kreisberg as well as DC Entertainment's Geoff Johns. The first two episodes will bring Barry to Starling City, while the latter will be a bigger introduction into the world of Flash.
Barry Allen's arrival on
Arrow will eventually usher in the age of superpowers, which have so far been excluded from the series as the producers strived to keep everything grounded in reality. "When we first meet Barry Allen, he's just a forensic scientist working forCentral City Police Department," Kreisberg
said in July. "He's just an ordinary man when we meet him. As we always do on
Arrow, we're trying to keep it grounded and realistic as possible. That is the way the audience will be introduced to Barry and get to know him before life gets a little bit faster."
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In comparison to Oliver Queen (
Stephen Amell), Barry is not a dark and tortured soul. "It'll be fun to see these two characters together because they both have distinctly different world views, while both caring very deeply about right and wrong," Kreisberg said, adding that Barry will have a profound impact on Oliver's life as he embarks on his new mission to become a hero rather than just a vigilante.
Gustin is well-known for his role as the scheming Sebastian Smythe of the Warblers on
Glee and Campbell Price on the final season of
90210. He joins a long list of guest stars in the upcoming second season, including
Summer Glau,
Michael Jai White,
Kevin Alejandro,
Caity Lotz,
Bex Taylor-Klaus and
Cynthia Addai-Robinson.
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Berlanti, Kreisberg and Johns will executive-produce the potential
Flash spin-off.
David Nutter, who helmed the
Arrow pilot, has signed on to direct the backdoor pilot.
Marc Guggenheim, also an executive producer on
Arrow, will not be involved with
Flash.
With Flash, the network has now assembled two of the main seven members of the Justice League, including Green Arrow from the flagship series. Last year, the network developed a Wonder Woman origin series, which would've been called
Amazon, but the project is currently on hold. The CW was also the home to Clark Kent's Superman, though
Smallville and
Arrow do not hail from the same universe since the Green Arrow was played by
Justin Hartley on the former series.
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Should
Flash move forward, it would be the third spin-off for the network.
The Vampire Diaries is launching the new series
The Originals this season, while a backdoor pilot is being developed to spin off the long-running
Supernatural.
Arrow returns Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 8/7c on The CW.
(Full disclosure: TVGuide.com is owned by CBS, one of The CW's parent companies)