Draft:Rick Flag Sr. (DC Universe)

In October 2018, filmaker James Gunn was hired to write and direct The Suicide Squad (2021), a standalone sequel to Suicide Squad (2016), an earlier film in the DCEU. Gunn worked with producer Peter Safran, who also produced the DCEU films Aquaman (2018) and Shazam! (2019). Before its release, a spin-off of the film was ordered in September 2020, the television series Peacemaker (2022–present). Besides Gunn's and Safran's projects, DC Films president Walter Hamada was planning around 25 other live-action and animated DC-based series.

In April 2022, Discovery, Inc. and DC Films's owner WarnerMedia merged to become Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), led by president and CEO David Zaslav. The new company was expected to restructure DC Entertainment so the film, television, and video game divisions of the company could be aligned. Even before the merger was complete, Zaslav began meeting with candidates to take over DC—including film executive Emma Watts—with the hope of finding an equivalent to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. Despite some recent successes with DC films and series, Zaslav and WBD felt DC lacked a "coherent creative and brand strategy". Besides Watts, producer Dan Lin and filmmaker Todd Phillips were prominent candidates in the running to take over DC, though both declined.

Ultimately, Gunn and Safran were announced as the co-chairmen and co-CEOs of the newly formed DC Studios at the end of October 2022 and were set to take over from Hamada on November 1. Gunn was expected to focus on the creative side of the company while Safran focused on the business and production side. A week after starting their new roles, the pair began working with a group of writers to develop an eight-to-ten-year plan for the new DCU, and Gunn presented Zaslav this plan, highlighting his affinity for obscure characters from DC. The duo announced a slate of DCU projects, which combined DC's well-known "diamond characters" with lesser known characters who they hoped would become just as popular.

File:Frank Grillo by Gage Skidmore.jpg across DCU media]]

Frank Grillo was one of the first performers Gunn spoke to after taking over DC Studios. Having wanted to work with Grillo for a long time and having known him for a little while, Gunn desired "to find something cool" for the actor. Gunn personally reached out to Grillo before calling his agents, presenting his plan, and Grillo trusted Gunn enough to join as Rick Flag Sr. before reading a script. Grillo said that because Flag was not prominent in DC comics, Gunn gave him 8 to 10 pages of backstory on the character.

Grillo's casting in the first project of the DCU, Creature Commandos, was announced in April 2023. Grillo was among some of the actors planned for live-action appearances in the DCU. Gunn said he ended up putting him "everywhere" across the franchise. Grillo joined Peacemaker season 2 to reprise the role of Flag in May 2024, and the character's appearance in Superman was revealed by spoiler photographs published by Cleveland media during filming there in June. Gunn said that the performers in the DCU had to be able to work within different genres, and that Grillo was especially good with both the comedy of Creature Commandos and the drama of Superman and Peacemaker.

{{Quote box|quote="[You see it] in his behavior and in his allegiance. I think the death of a child, the murder of a child, even an adult child, is catastrophic in affecting one's behavior. That's kind of the through line for this guy is that he's dealing with, or not dealing with so well, the death of his son".|source=—Grillo on Flag's situation in the DCU|align=right|width=30%}}

Gunn described Flag as "morally a complex human being", and said that his various appearances across the DCU afforded the audience a look at the character from different angles. Grillo said that Flag Sr. has more gravitas and control than his son, and that he played the character as grizzled and "white on the sides and white in the beard". He said that Gunn gave him the freedom to implement much of his own personality into Flag, something he admitted was hard because "as an actor, you're trained not to do that", though he said "the way that he believes in the world" and his relationship with his son were similar to himself.

Flag deals with the death of his son, Rick Flag Junior, in the events of the DCU. Grillo says that "there's not a day that goes by in Rick Flag Sr.'s life that revenge isn't in his head" against Peacemaker, who killed his son. Grillo says Flag Sr. would "lay down his life in a second to have his son back", and of a parent's grief, he said; "that's what he goes to bed with and he wakes up with every day and [figuring out] how he's going to avenge the death of his boy".

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Grillo described Flag as "a huge part" of the DCU and would be "weaved through a lot of different things", akin to the role of Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Flag has appeared in two television series and one film in the DCU:

In the animated series Creature Commandos, Flag finds himself in the middle of an international incident. Since the United States Congress deemed against the use of human prisoners, Amanda Waller has now made use of a group of monsters, the Creature Commandos. Waller assigns them to Flag as his subordinates, under the name "Task Force M". Grillo described Flag's position in the series as a "troubled man who has to take care of all these maniacs".

Flag and his team are assigned to defend Princess Ilana Rostovic from the witch Circe, but encounters trouble with keeping his team orderly, and is attacked by Doctor Phosphorus, while Rostovic comes onto him, eventually seducing him and having sex together in a bathroom of her castle. Sucessfully defending Rostovic from Circe and capturing her for A.R.G.U.S., the Creature Commandos return to Waller, but after an imprisoned Circe imparts Waller with a vision of "clairvoyance" in which death and destruction of the entire world occur at Rostovic's behest, Waller mandates her to be killed in a covert operation. Flag refuses to carry this out, leading Waller to chastise him for believing that he knows better just because he had sex with Rostovic, removing him from command of the Commandos and installing the Bride as their leader to kill the princess. After fighting with Eric Frankenstein over his misunderstanding that Flag and the Bride were in a relationship, which Flag explains was a gross misreading of the situation, the two team up to try to investigate the situation, which Flag finds fishy, and the two discover that Clayface killed and posed as a tenured professor on the subject of Themyscira to influence Waller on Circe's veracity. Clayface fights Eric and Flag, with the latter being gravely injured and taken to a hospital by the earlier. Flag lies in an unconscious state, being anticipated to come to so Waller may learn what Flag knows about the situation.

In Superman, which takes place a few months after the events of Creature Commandos, Rick Flag Sr. takes over Amanda Waller's leadership role, who was the leader of A.R.G.U.S. plot summary

Flag's uniform differs from his previous appearance in Creature Commandos and his hair is not as grey, an aesthetic Grillo attributed to the character's promotion, saying that changed his behavior and mission. Concerning Flag's outlook on the film's title character, Grillo said Flag "understands and appreciates Superman for what he is", despite the two being ideological opposites. Grillo figured that Flag was "a bit in awe of Superman", and believed that Flag respects him immensely. Concerning Flag Sr.'s newfound leadership role, Grillo said this enabled him to find out the truth about the death of his son, because he "can see things that [he] couldn't see before", strengthening his passion for revenge.

Flag is a primary character in the second season of the television series Peacemaker. Flag receives "another kind of promotion" in Peacemaker season 2, setting him opposite of Christopher Smith / Peacemaker, who killed his son Rick Flag Jr., the leader of Suicide Squad, in the film The Suicide Squad (2021).{{efn|The death of Rick Flag Jr. was one of the events carried over from Gunn's DC Extended Universe work (The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker season 1) to the DCU canon.}} Gunn said that Flag had "a little unfinished business to take care of" because of this.

Grillo said Flag's white hair caused conflict with his shooting schedule for the television series Tulsa King (2022–present). Gunn said this conflict with Tulsa King was the reason for the inconsistency between Flag's white hair on his animated avatar in Creature Commandos and Grillo's black hair in Peacemaker.

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Category:Television characters introduced in 2024

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Category:DC Universe (franchise) drafts

Category:Warner Bros. Animation drafts