Should Warner Bros have shelved The Flash? I’m honestly not sure I have an answer. The accounts of its star, Ezra Miller, and their two-year downward spiral – which include allegations of harassment, grooming and physical violence – is distressing in a way that extends beyond all critical analysis. What needs to come, before even the matter of accountability, is the question of why there was no support system in place. Why was no one empowered either with the tools or with the moral imperative to intervene in a situation where an individual was in such a clearly dangerous state?
There’s no real sense that anyone would be helped by either the release or the cancellation of Miller’s movie. In both scenarios, Warner Bros gets to shrug all responsibility and focus on the fate of its product and not the people it employs. And though the actor is (as their representatives stress) currently seeking treatment, the hand-wringing over a proposed sequel brings with it the perverse implication that said treatment will end not when medical professionals say so, but when Hollywood decides it’s time for Miller to go back to work.
