Gleek charming Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) was such a smash hit on his two-episode arc on Arrow that The CW scrapped plans to film a back-door third-episode pilot on Arrow in favour of a full-sized stand-alone Flash pilot directed by David Nutter. How full-sized? Huge. The Flash will film in Vancouver for almost the entire month of March. Most pilots shoot for two weeks, maybe three tops. The CW says it wants to start The Flash “with a bang” like Arrow did.
UPDATE: TVLine reports the Flash-back casting of John Wesley Shipp, who played Barry Allen/The Flash in a 90s CBS series, for an undisclosed role. Candice Patton will be Allen’s best friend and potential girlfriend Iris West. Carlos Valdes will play engineering genius Cisco Roman. Tom Cavanagh is the S.T.A.R. labs scientist Harrison Wells. Deadline Hollywood reports Rick Cosnett cast as Central City Detective Eddie Thawne and Danielle Panabaker as bioengineering expert Caitlin Snow, who lost her fiancé in the S.T.A.R. labs explosion. They join Grant Gustin (Glee) as Barry Allen aka The Flash and Jesse L. Martin (Law & Order) as Central City Detective West, a surrogate father to Allen.
UPDATE: February 22nd.
Filming of the Flash pilot is expected to start March 2nd and wrap March 25th (dates subject to change).