The Flash seemed to be setting itself up as a big DCEU event that would reset the comic book universe, deliver a host of cameos and variants that Marvel Studios has been promising but so far failed to show in their multiverse, and generally make all the box office problems of Black Adam and Shazam! Fury of the Gods go away. Instead, the film’s lacklustre opening weekend and subsequent 70%+ drop in week on week numbers has now left the film as one of their biggest bombs.
The Flash sees Ezra Miller finally getting a solo movie as the Scarlet Speedster, but with multiple delays, issues with Miller’s personal life and the rug-pull of the DCEU’s demise and James Gunn’s new DCU arrival, it is not hard to work out why audiences have struggled to really get behind the movie in a meaningful way. Along with complaints about the movie’s CGI effects, less than thrilled critic reviews and still more than a little dissent in camp over Henry Cavill’s treatment, the DCEU seems like all but done despite having two more movies to come this year.
Currently, The Flash has taken just $215 million worldwide since it was released on June 16. Heading into its third weekend, the movie is now facing new competition from Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, meaning that its third weekend on release is not likely to expand its march up the box office chart by much. The Flash’s second weekend came in only slightly better than Shazam! Fury of the Gods and was a long way off Black Adam. Even if The Flash can meet current projections of around $300-$320 million, the reported $200 million budget, and the $150 millions reportedly spent on marketing makes the movie a bigger loss than if it had been completely abandoned by Warner Bros. in a similar fashion to Batgirl.
Can Blue Beetle and Aquaman 2 Bring Any Redemption Following The Flash?
While the main focus for DC Studios is making a success of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DCU slate of movies and TV shows, there is no doubt that the lack of interest in anything put out from the DCEU in the last two years has made any real impact has to be a worry. Even given all of the aforementioned reasons why people don’t really care about the old regime, Marvel Studios can put out a movie with a dismal critic rating and still pull in three times the gross that The Flash is looking at.
Having recently distracted from the collapse of The Flash with a low key casting announcement of David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan as the new Superman and Lois Lane respectively, attention now turns to the upcoming releases of Blue Beetle – a character obscure enough to have a struggle on his hands from the start, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom – which battles the fall out of Amber Heard’s legal battle with Johnny Depp and its place as the last release of the old DC slate. Whether it would have been more beneficial to write off the entire final phase of old DC movies is something that WBD may really wish they had considered in hindsight.
