Speaking to Superhero Hype, Berlanti talked about his vision for both heroes:
Green Lantern is always a bit lighter than that on earth but mixed with a twinge of the space opera, which has its own epic qualities to it. Flash as we're getting into it is interesting, too. Though Barry Allen was a little lighter in the comic, I think because of the nature that he was a CSI and moved in this world of crime before this stuff happened. I think it's tonally somewhere in between GL and Dark Knight. It's actually a little bit darker than when we were working on Green Lantern, because you're dealing with somebody who is already a crimefighter in a world of those kinds of criminals and that kind of murder and homicide. I find you talk a lot about different films when you're working on a film, and we spend a lot more time talking about Se7en or The Silence of the Lambs as we construct that part of Barry's world, then I thought when we got into it. It helps balance a guy in a red suit who runs really fast.
Oy. Listen, The Silence of the Lambs is a great movie. Seven is a great movie. You know what the Flash has in common with them? Jack diddley squat. The Flash (or a Flash, since there are at least four) is a police technician who works in the lab -- he's not busting down doors to Jame Gumb's dungeon or finding Gwenyth's severed head in the desert. That's not his character, that's not his scene. The Flash lives in a bright, four-color world not some dank, grimy corner of Tim Burton's id. I'm not sure what about the character of Barry Allen screamed "torture and dismemberment" but it's certainly in no iteration of the character I've ever read or seen. This is as ill an omen for a comic book as the words "A Joel Schumacher Film," and it makes me worry for the future of both the Flash and Green Lantern. If the writer was this far off on his characterization for one hero, what are the odds he's got a lock on the other one?
Hey, Greg Berlanti, you know what was a really successful movie and is tonally similar to the Flash? Iron Man. Maybe you should be thinking more of the other quippy red-suited superhero rather than scary movies where people make skin suits of fat people and creepy-ass sh*t .
ยท Exclusive: Script for The Flash and GL2 Treatment in Progress [Superhero Hype]