The first teaser trailer for tie all DC movie universes together. "This movie is a bit of a hinge in the sense that it presents a story that implies a unified universe where all the cinematic iterations that we’ve seen before are valid," he explained. "It’s inclusive in the sense that it is saying all that you’ve seen exists, and everything that you will see exists, in the same unified multiverse."
There are fashions in popular culture, and frankly right now multiverses are all the rage. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has embraced the multiverse like never before, Star Trek is touching on multiversal adventures, and even Buffy the Vampire Slayer has a multiverse. But the primary question in each franchise is simply how the multiverse is to be navigated; is it via some extradimensional Quantum Realm or mycelial network, through magic, or some other means? It's generally been assumed Barry Allen will be able to travel through the multiverse using his powers - certainly that was teased in 's dream sequences - but now that has been officially confirmed.
DC Films has released the first trailer for The Flash, and a voice-over from Michael Keaton's Batman confirms the nature of the Flash's powers. "You can go anywhere you want, right," Batman asks Barry Allen, as the teaser shows images of the Flash rewriting his own personal history by saving his mother's life. "Any timeline, any universe. Why would you want to stay and fight to save this one?" It seems that, as in the comics, the DCEU's version of the Flash really does have the power to travel through the multiverse - although it remains to be seen whether he's learned how to navigate it safely.
The teaser strongly suggests The Flash is inspired by the The Flash TV series). In this story, Barry Allen attempts to rewrite history by preventing his mother's death years ago, and inadvertently creates a dystopian timeline. Just as the trailer suggested, by changing the past the Flash has changed the present and created a new future. But the teaser goes a little further than this, suggesting the DCEU's version of the Flash also possesses the ability to jump between timelines, one step beyond the comics.
Barry Allen's multiversal powers mean The Flash is one of the most important films in the DCEU to date. As Muschietti noted, it binds all the different cinematic superhero worlds together - and potentially those from the small-screen as well, because the Arrowverse's "Crisis on Infinite Earths" already confirmed some of these Earths in the Arrowverse's multiverse. Significantly, that includes Earth-89, the setting of the Tim Burton Batman films - and the world of Michael Keaton's Batman. Keaton's return in The Flash thus draws every DC property together, film and TV, into a single multiverse - one The Flash can run through.
