“The Flash” Is Projected To Be A Box Office Bomb After Opening With $55 Million
Warner Bros. threw a Hail Mary by deciding not to shelve their long-stalled film The Flash, as its lead, Ezra Miller, collected a cornucopia of allegations which includes but is not limited to assault, harassment, and child grooming- and now, after the superhero flick was finally released in theaters in North America on June 16 and internationally on June 14, the verdict is in! We’re looking at a big, fat box office flop! With a measly debut of $55 million- may this put to rest the idea that audiences are impartial to watching abusive dipsticks?? I’m lookin at you, Kevin Spacey!
The studio spent around $300 million on the project- from about $200 million in production and $100 million for marketing- which is a lot of money for marketing for a movie that I barely saw any promos of except the Superbowl commercial. Usually, a movie needs to make around 2.5 times its production budget to break even. So far, The Flash’s Rotten Tomatoes score is a 66% on the Tomatometer with an 85% audience score. At the box office, it brought in $55 million in three days and, so far, has made a total of $138 million worldwide. Pixar’s Elemental also flopped. According to Variety:
This weekend’s two new releases were once expected to ignite the summer blockbuster season; instead, both entirely missed the mark. “The Flash” stumbled with $55 million and “Elemental” collected just $29.5 million in their respective debuts. Both films fell short of already-low expectations. Worse, they were pricy endeavors, costing $200 million to make and roughly $100 million to market, so they are shaping up to be huge disappointments in their theatrical runs.
In the lead-up to “The Flash,” executives at Warner Bros. worked hard to convince the public that the film is “one of the greatest superhero movies ever made,” per newly minted DC Studios co-chief James Gunn. Directed by Andy Muschietti, the story picks up as Miller’s Barry Allen a.k.a The Flash travels back in time to prevent his mother’s murder and inadvertently cracks open the DC multiverse. (Cameos abound!)
But a tepid “B” CinemaScore from opening weekend crowds suggests that the moviegoing masses didn’t entirely agree with the lavish praise bestowed on the film by the people who made it. Without positive audience scores or strong word-of-mouth, “The Flash” will struggle to rebound in the coming weeks, especially as summer season heats up with the release of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” on June 30, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” on July 12 and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” on July 21.
Calling this movie “one of the greatest superhero movies ever made” is looking like a reach for James Gunn, considering it’s just recycling the worn-out multiverse trend, which has quickly become stale since audiences have been spoon-fed the concept down their throats though all these Marvel movies and TV spinoffs, plus the Oscar sweeping film Everything Everywhere All At Once, and we can expect it in the new Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny. So it begs the question, how much multiverse is too much multiverse?
I’ll bet Ezra’s tumultuous ass wishes they could maneuver the multiverse to stop themselves from getting arrested/accused of unlawful activities so many times. Because with these trifling box office numbers, it doesn’t look like Ezra’s getting another Flash movie, or, Warner Bros willing, any movie again! Fingers crossed.
Pic: Warner Bros.