It’s hard to believe that moviegoers are just less than two weeks away from The Flash’s release. The DC film starring Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton, Sasha Calle, and Ben Affleck will be full of Easter Eggs and cameos relating to the comic book universe’s rich history. However, DC heroes aren’t the only things to be keeping your eye out for while watching the film. There’s also a group of famous mystery solvers under the Warner Brothers banner that have multiple references throughout The Flash, including a fun Easter Egg to one of James Gunn’s most underrated works, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.The Easter Egg was discovered by a fan on Twitter who pointed out that a poster for Monsters Unleashed can be seen on young Barry Allen’s wall in a behind the scenes photo with Flash director Andy Muschietti. Gunn jokingly responded to this hilariously fun canon revelation by simply asking the thought-provoking question, “I’m canon?”
Scooby-Dooby-Doo!
The director is of course best known for his Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, The Suicide Squad, and Slither, but before all that Gunn wrote Scooby-Doo (2002) and Monsters Unleashed. They were critically panned at the time, but in the last 20 years they’ve rightfully gained a cult following. Starring Freddie Prince Jr, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Linda Cardellini, and Matthew Lillard, both films were ahead of its time in terms of its edgier style of humor and parody-like sensibilities while still being a glowing love letter to the franchise as a whole. Monsters Unleashed in particular saw iconic villains from Scooby’s past like The Black Knight Ghost and Captain Cutler’s Ghost haunt Mystery Inc. once again.
That’s pretty meta given that The Flash is also seeing villains like General Zod and heroes like Keaton’s Dark Knight return after many years locked away in the DC vault. This Easter Egg is even crazier when you consider that Gunn’s now the co-head of DC Studios and is ushering in a new era for the iconic brand. This film was made way before Gunn took the job too, but Barry seems to be a Scooby-Doo fan as we’ve seen him wear a Mystery Machine shirt in the trailers. His passion for solving crimes spawned at a young age which we’ll see when The Flash speeds into theaters on June 16, 2023.