Is Doogie Howser stepping into The Flash's tights?

Posted Thursday, February 12, 2009 at 12:26 PM Central

by John Couture

I must preface this story as being categorized wildly in the rumor department. The two sites that broke this news are not normally known for breaking casting news. So, as always, take the following with a big grain of salt.

Screen Rant (which is the more reputable site of the two) is reporting this week that Neil Patrick Harris is in the running to play The Flash in next Summer's big screen offering of the speedy superhero. You might remember that fellow funny man Ryan Reynolds has long been tied to the project.

But the article does make a good point that Reynolds' portrayal of Deadpool in May's X-Men Origins: Wolverine may preclude him from the red tights. The general rule of thumb is one superhero per actor. Character cross-overs are frequent enough to be confusing, no need to further that confusion by having actors play more than one comic character.

Meanwhile, Think McFly Think is reporting that Warner Bros. has their short list of Flash potential down to two actors, Scott Porter and an unnamed young man that could theoretically be NPH.

Personally, I'm a huge How I Met Your Mother fan and Neil is enjoying a nice renaissance thanks to his comic turns in the Harold & Kumar movies and HIMYM. I think he'd be an inspired choice, but I'm sure that there are NPH haters out there that would give Warner Bros. reason to pause.

What do you think of either of these rumored Flashes? Who do you think should don the red tights?