THE FLASH flops, ending the DCEU’s surreal journey

Somewhere The Rock is laughing and laughing. The Flash made less in its opening weekend ($55.1M) than Black Adam did ($67.8M), and we all know Black Adam was a colossal flop. The Flash is expected to make $350M worldwide (less than Black Widow, a movie that opened in the middle of the pandemic) and that is nowhere near recouping the costs of the film, somewhere in the $300 million range. (A movie has to make about twice what it cost to go into the black.)

It’s the penultimate chapter in the strange saga of the DCEU, not to be confused with the DCU, which is coming up in ’24 and beyond. The DCEU was conceived as WB’s answer to the MCU,  an interconnected universe of films, with the “Snyderverse” Justice League cast at its core. But nothing went according to plan. 

The Ezra Miller-starring The Flash was originally announced all the way back in 2014 (nine years ago!) with an original release date of 2018. In those nine years, the film underwent director after director, and delay after delay, as run down in the Ringer:

Seth Grahame-Smith was originally attached to the project before exiting over creative differences; Rick Famuyiwa was next up until he left because of, you guessed it, creative differences; the Game Night duo of John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein then took the reins and, you’re not going to believe this, creative differences led to their departure. The good news: Warner Bros. finally found someone who would stick around in Andy Muschietti, who directed both films in a two-part adaptation of Stephen King’s It. The bad news: Deadline reported last year that an unnamed comic book adaptation set to come out in 2023 had supposedly gone through 45 (!) different writers in the development process. Given its notoriously troubled history, all signs point to that movie being The Flash. (If it’s any consolation, The Flash has only one credited screenwriter in Christina Hodson, who was responsible for Bumblebee and Birds of Prey, which are both delightful blockbusters.)

The original scheme for The Flash to spin out of a splendid Justice League movie ended when Justice League was a disaster in 2017, but Warner Bros. pushed on, for reasons that no one has really explained except blind hope, maybe. As recounted by Movieweb, the original 2018 release date was scrapped when a director couldn’t be found. Once-planned director Rick Famuyiwa went so far as to make at appearance at the 2017 Comic-Con panel that announced the plans for the DCEU, but he soon dropped out, and the movie was taken off the schedule for two years.

When eventual director Andy Muschietti signed on in 2019, the film was given a summer 2022 release date. Of course, then things happened, including the rise of the Sn•derbros, the Ray Fisher controversy, and a global pandemic. Ezra Miller’s record of erratic and illegal activities wouldn’t begin until the 2020 video of them choking a woman emerged, but their real troubles began during the pandemic, too late to recast.

As the years dragged on, Warners changed hands to AT&T, and the entire superhero film slate floundered in the wake of the Snyder-Joss Whedon disaster, the MCU continued to rake, and The Flash was moved to a November 2022 release date. It was also originally set to come out AFTER Aquaman 2. However, more delays led to everything being pushed back even further, into 2023, with Aquaman 2 now coming out AFTER The Flash, meaning a whole bunch of cameos by various Batmans had to be shuffled around.

Does any of this make sense? This timeline as as confusing as the one Barry makes in the movie!

With all of this time and effort invested in the film, the folks at WB – now helmed by David Zaslav – had no choice but to press bravely on, even when the January announcement of the whole new DCU plan led by James Gunn and Peter Safran meant that this whole timeline was about as relevant as the left over pizza in the bottom of your fridge.

Zaslav and Gunn stepped manfully to the hype breach, including a constant drumbeat of scooper tweets saying “The Flash tested well in a screening” and Gunn declaring it “one of the greatest superhero movies ever made.” The entire movie was shown at CinemaCon, to an encouraging response, and test scores continued to be waved around…until we arrive at the present day and a Cinemascore of “B” from audiences, which means lackluster word of mouth. (Sn•derbros are celebrating its demise because it proves….well, I guess it proves that Sn•derbros are horrible people.)

I’ve yet to see The Flash, but it has a lengthy list of strange cameos that cover the entire fraught history of the WB’s attempts to make their own MCU, and the ’90s merry-go-round of Batmans. In a way, it’s a fitting wrap-up of this tangled tale.

So where does that leave us? The DCEU has two more lame duck films, August’s Blue Beetle which looks to be a low-budget teen flick more suitable for Max – which happens to be where it was originally planned to debut. However Xolo Maridueña’s Jamie Reyes is leading a charmed life. Not only did Blue Beetle survive when stablemate Batgirl was buried in an unmarked grave, reportedly it will make it through to the DCU. Of course folks said that about Ezra Miller too, and that looks extremely unlikely.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, to give the film its proper title, is still coming out in December and it’s said to be awful, if scooper tweets about test screenings are to be believed. And with that…the DCEU will be ended at last.

Maaaaybe announcing an entirely new creative direction before releasing the last of the previous regime’s movies was a mistake…

— Joe Russo (@joerussotweets) June 18, 2023

Muschietti has been announced as the director for Batman: The Brave and the Bold, a reward for the thankless task of bringing the Flash to the finish line.

Sasha Calle’s Supergirl may or may not appear in the DCU – she hopes it does.

Jason Momoa is still rumored to be playing Lobo in the DCU.

Gal Gadot is moving on with her life, with Wonder Woman 3 cancelled.

Henry Cavill is probably tinkering on his computer between workouts.

And Ezra Miller? While WB folks kept alive the idea that this version of The Flash might make it through to the DCU, that was pure hype. The Flash entered the speed force….but he did not come out.

While I was researching this I came across a photo from 2017, a Gal Gadot selfie of the Justice League cast on the way to the triumphal 2017 Comic-Con WB panel. Look at those smiles. Could anyone have imagined the strange and sometimes tragic future that lay ahead?