After $9.7 million in Thursday previews, Warner Bros. Discovery and DC Studios breathed a sigh of relief that The Flash — their first superhero summer would-be blockbuster in six years — wouldn’t stumble off the starting line this weekend. But The Flash is racing toward a $70 million domestic box office bow across the four-day Juneteenth holiday weekend, a comedown on the lower end of expectations.
Many bat-suits revealed in “The Flash”
Source: WBD, DC StudiosThe Flash hoped to benefit from good word of mouth and mostly positive reviews. And indeed, the critical reception started out much stronger, but has seen a rise in negative assessments as opening day loomed. Now, it’s still mostly in positive review territory, but at 67% it’s not the resounding critical embrace Warner hoped for.
Tracking meanwhile didn’t budge for weeks, leading to questions about whether The Flash would wind up underperforming in its bow and suffer a quick death like DC’s recent superhero whiff Shazam! Fury of the Gods or a disappointing longer run like Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Audience word of mouth for The Flash wound up much less positive than WBD expected as well, with viewers giving it a weak Cinemascore of “B.” That’s definitely worse than I expected (read my review here), and it’s an ominous sign for The Flash holding well in the coming weeks.
It’s fair to point out that Flash had a hit TV show on the CW, and is a generally known superhero to the (domestic) public at least in terms of his speed power and appearing on plenty of cartoon series, so the franchise should have built-in branding.
However, broader mainstream awareness and popularity is lacking. With the only prior notable appearance of Ezra Miller’s superhero being in the largely unseen and unmemorable theatrical version of Justice League (since Zack Snyder’s Justice League had a relatively much smaller total audience, unfortunately), and with the trailers leaning heavily on nostalgia for Michael Keaton’s Batman and the reveal of Sasha Calle’s Supergirl, the average audience member can be forgiven if they felt some disconnect and uncertainty about what exactly to expect from a Flash movie.
It’s clear that theatrical attendance still suffers from lingering Covid effects, from actual disinclination to attend as many movies per year to the more convenient and ever-improving streaming/home entertainment options. It’s also clear that audience have become far pickier in their selections of which films are worth paying top dollar to see in theaters, and that there’s plenty of worthy spectacle worth waiting for.
When you know Avatar: The Way of Water or Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is possible, you aren’t shelling out the same ticket prices for your family to sit through also-rans. And keep in mind, as a reflection of this fact, that attendance at premium theaters like Dolby Cinema and IMAX is actually increasing, often contributing to the longer legs of hit films because viewers would rather wait a week to see sold-out popular movies in the best seats possible.
A movie like The Flash that has a few killer trailers but otherwise suffers from reduced marketing — including a far smaller promo budget than most tentpoles of its kind and a lead performer who is largely being hidden from sight and sound — and which is part of a shared superhero universe that’s failed to top $400 million with any of its previous six releases, then, could be exactly the sort that suffers from a combination of the above factors. Now add in the news coverage of Ezra Miller’s crimes and public outbursts, as well as accusations of abusive or dangerous behavior around children, and some increasingly mixed reviews and viewer word of mouth.
It’s easy to offer such critiques with 20/20 hindsight, of course. I fully expected audiences to love The Flash based on the entertainment value. And it’s worth remembering we are only halfway through Saturday stateside, so this is a lot of early pontificating based on early numbers and projections. It’s still possible The Flash could recover a bit and still pull out a $70+ million four-day debut, and that international receipts could hypothetically exceed expectations to save the day.
That said, those audience grades and the lower turnout than expected so far looks like a familiar pattern repeating itself. Without a remarkable turnaround Saturday night and on Father’s Day tomorrow — both of which are unlikely, in the face of the painful “B” grade and slowing attendance — The Flash is probably going to hit the low end of estimates this weekend and have a disappointing debut that sets it up for a far lower box office run that WBD or even most pundits (myself included) expected.
The Flash will still probably be the first DCEU title since 2018 to top $400 million, but then again these opening numbers are similar to Black Adam. But they’re also similar to Aquaman. Those two movies each had a very different calendar window than The Flash, obviously, but as far as comparisons go, it makes the point that numbers alone don’t always tell the whole tale.
Numbers and letters, though? That’s a bit different. And letters like “B” combined with numbers like $60-70 million tell a (sadly familiar) tale of woe. Not even the apparent failure of Pixar’s new animated release Elemental is providing The Flash with a boost from families who look elsewhere for an entertaining outing.
This is now the ninth DCEU film in a row to open below $100 million in North America. Ninth. The last DCEU movie to open at $100 million or more was 2017’s Wonder Woman.
If The Flash’s international numbers are on par with domestic figures, then that’s a disaster for the studio and would mean The Flash is likely to become the eighth DCEU release in a row that fails to reach $400 million worldwide.
Of course, The Flash is a holdover release from a previous leadership and ownership, the last film of the DCEU as we knew it and supposedly the bridge into a new DCU future. It’s no real sweat for James Gunn and Peter Safran, who already determined it was time for some sort of reboot and completely fresh vision for DC cinema.
But that ignores the fact both co-CEOs are fans of these films and would be unlikely to take any pleasure in its difficulties. Besides, business doesn’t always make rational decisions about who to blame for what. Regardless, everyone involved in The Flash (with the exception of the lead) deserves better than seeing their efforts go down in flames while a bunch of fans and certain segments of the entertainment press cheer.
My own review of The Flash was mixed, and I’ve made no secret of my strong disagreements with the leadership choices at WBD since the takeover. But I’m still frankly surprised the audience reaction isn’t much more positive, and I don’t want to see the final chapter closing out the DCEU turn into a forgotten belly-flop.
Which might not happen. Or it might. We’ll see what the foreign markets have to say about it, and how the final domestic situation shakes out tomorrow and Monday. So stay tuned and be sure to check back here again soon, dear readers, for more updates and analysis.
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