The Flash will be lucky to come in third at the box office this weekend
The Flash is unlikely to catch Elemental or Across The Spider-Verse this weekend—and it'll struggle to even beat Jennifer Lawrence's No Hard Feelings
Aux News The Flash
Here’s a short list of words and phrases you don’t want showing up in stories about your big, expensive superhero movie’s second week in theaters: “Catastrophic.” “More than 70 percent decline.” “Dismal.” And, of course, “Morbius-esque.”
And yet, that’s exactly the fate facing The Flash this weekend, as Friday night box office numbers have borne out early projections that speedster Barry Allen was about to race straight off a cliff in his second weekend on the market—and not one of those forgiving Looney Tunes-style cliffs that give you a minute to float in mid-air before reality comes crashing in; no, this sucker’s going down.
Specifically, the Warner Bros. superhero movie is expected to come in a somewhat shocking third in sales this weekend, coming in behind both Pixar’s Elemental—which is holding on to audiences much better, despite a crappy opening weekend—and Sony’s Across The Spider-Verse, now in its fourth weekend. In fact, Flash might struggle to even land at third, given that Jennifer Lawrence’s new comedy No Hard Feelings is doing better than expected—and, again, Flash is doing quite a bit worse.
Specifically, Andy Muschietti’s superhero flick is (per THR) expected to bring in about $15 million this weekend, meaning it’s suffering a drop of at least 70 percent in a single week. That’s bad enough that it moved Hollywood journalist Matthew Belloni to note that The Flash is now duking it out for the ignominious title of “worst box office drop for a superhero movie this century” with, you guessed it, Sony’s Morbius. (Which dropped from $39 million to $10 million in the span of a single week when it opened to many memes, but few sold tickets, last April.)
The one silver lining for Warner Bros.—stuck in the lousy position of having to promote a film by a previous DC Films regime that’s arrived with huge amounts of baggage from both a creative and PR point of view, and which now is putting up bricks in terms of audience retention—is that the movie is doing a bit better internationally; $99 million in its opening weekend, including $13 million from China, means the $200 million film might not actually lose money, at least.
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Here’s the headline, boys: “Flash Crash”
Flash in the pan!
Flash No Smash: Franchise Dreams Up in Ash as Critics Bash and Marvel Rival Rakes in More Spider-Man Cash
Audiences Stay Home To Listen To The Pogues “Rum, Sodomy And The Lash”
“The down low? Too slow! Scarlet Speedster and Dark Knight lose fight for BOFFO B.O.”-The NY Post
“Barry Fallen”
Moviegoing Public To Warner Bros.: “Your Flash Ain’t Nuthin’ But Trash”
“The Flush!”[celebrations erupt across Mad Magazine offices]
Meanwhile, in Argentina:
Holy shit! Primer golpe!?
This is the most delightful “Meanwhile, in Argentina” I’ve ever seen!
Flash Bored ‘em
The Flash made $75m internationally in its opening weekend. The $99m figure is its international total to date, including the past week. It might hold on to some momentum overseas, seeing as how Elemental is not picking up anywhere else as well as it is here, but it’s absolutely not going to land anywhere near break even. At this point, it’s fairly doubtful the movie will hit $300m worldwide, let alone the $400m they would need to get The Rock to come out and explain movie economics to everyone again.It’s bad enough losing to two other movies in its second weekend. Elemental will eventually overtake The Flash’s domestic total, which is a bit of a surprise considering its opening, but overall it was pretty easy to predict that the movie would end up in second or third place. But for it come in fourth, behind a fairly lowkey looking comedy is an absolute disaster. Morbius didn’t come in third under The Lost City in its second week, and The Lost City was ten times the movie Morbius was. I haven’t seen No Hard Feelings yet, but there’s absolutely no way anything in the movie is funnier than it potentially beating The Flash in ticket sales.
Hughes writing the movie may not lose money is him trolling us, out of pure spite, for all the grief we’ve given him and his fellow Keystone Copywriters over the years. It’s got to be. Not even he is that dumb…. Right??
The Flash will definitely lose money. While the advertised budget is 200 million, that often doesn’t account for extensive reshoots and accompanied post production work. Then you also have to add in worldwide advertising and promotional costs which usually are an additional half of the movie’s budget, so roughly 100 million on top of the 200 million. Then you have to factor in that DC/WB don’t receive every dollar of it’s box office. On average they receive 55% of the domestic box office, 43% of the international box office and only 25% of the box office from China. Also The Flash will steam on Max, WB’s own streaming service, so they won’t be able to sell the streaming rights to make more money. The Flash is definitely going to lose a substantial amount of money.
Disco Bros might be desperate enough to package up the DCEU films for Freevee or another ad supported free streamer. I hate how WB/TCM are cannibalized and tarnished by this merger but I hope the absolute worst professionally for Zaslav. Please let someone swoop in to take HBO and WB away in a few years.
i get the impression that, with the right marketing push and capitalizing on brendan fraser’s oscar win, batgirl might have made more money theatrically than flash will.
I don’t doubt it. Hell, the simple fact that the movie is a Batman spinoff would have probably done half the work for them. I mean, look how desperate DC’s marketing was to tie The Flash movie to Batman. He’s DC’s biggest franchise, and pretty much the only major DC hero who hasn’t absorbed a flop at this point (except for Aquaman. Take that, Entourage writers!)
well, i think it’s clear that keaton’s return didn’t exactly light the box office on fire, but with the addition of brendan fraser and jk simmons (and the fact that it cost 80 million to flash’s 220+)…idk i’m no studio big-shot but it feels like it was worth giving a shot!
Fuck the multiverse, I’m betting good money Batgirl succeeding (modestly to above average) is the singular outcome in all realities. I really need to see Batgirl, I need to know what WB execs considered “unwatchable” after the last three films actually released in theaters.
yeah gunn saying it was ‘one of the best superhero movies ever made’ really makes me nervous for his future of dc, too.i assume it was just him being a good company man, but yeesh.
Andy Muschetti and Gunn definitely are playing the civil politician dialogue during press. Also believe Gunn/WB agreed to give Andy The Brave and the Bold film as an apology/compensation.
I hope that tax right off was worth it!
My problem with this is…if they thought that the Flash with this kind horrible CGI was “cinema ready”, I really don’t want to know how shitty Batgril looked that it couldn’t be released “in the current state”.
Not saying that Batgirl wouldn’t be the better movie in the end. But damn, I am worried what shit they maybe produced if THIS here is the good product of them.
I love the fact that Brendan Fraser is so beloved that everything he’s been in since Doom Patrol has been golden.
And WB execs said: “Naw, we’ll put the criminal at the helm instead of a beloved, award winning actor with a legacy of great movies. That’ll get the box office draw!”
Let’s see… the latest entry in a little-loved franchise in which the last five consecutive theatrical entries underperformed, starring an actor with very little name recognition (let alone popularity) in a double role, playing a character who’s never been popular on the big screen, immediately after his TV counterpart just completed an exhausting nine-season run that most viewers bailed on years ago. Oh, and it’s another gimmick multiverse movie, uniting two major timelines over two years after No Way Home united three timelines (four when if count the Venom-verse).Yeah, it’s not particularly puzzling that this flick is pretty much DOA.
Also, they released it two weeks after Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel to the film that kicked off the whole multiverse trend in the first place.
Very little name recognition? Ezra Miller has SOME name recognition. It’s not, you know, great name recognition. In fact, after all the shit Miller has done, it’s actually bad name recognition. Might even be poisonous to its box office…Um… what point was I trying to make?
To be fair…DC fucked this whole Movie Universe up way before Flash. Stuffing way to much into each movie. Things that Marvel did over years, carefully including character after character, DC literally just threw everything into a movie. Like students at some party do with cheap alcohol into a bucket…and then throw up afterwards.
Then DC even started creating some sideprojects with the same characters (Joker, Batman, Suicide Squad, Shazam), but different actors and that may or maybe not connected to the movie universe.
Like they themselves had no clue what do to with it.
No a big problem for the comic book fan…but the majority of the cinema-goers isn’t the hardcore comic book fan. They know the characters and maybe 1-2 storylines. You never had a real coherent feeling that this is connected and more like some patchwork project that got thrown around without a plan.
the movie is doing a bit better internationally; $99 million in its opening weekend, including $13 million from China, means the $200 million film might not actually lose money, at least.Movie has a budget of $200-220m not including marketing – rumors online are that the all-in cost ended up being close to $300m. It made $178m globally in its first week and seems to have little to no legs and would have to make more than double that $300m to break-even (international markets tend to give smaller box office splits with studios). I feel like it’s highly doubtful that the movie breaks even.
As a general rule, movies have to take in 2.5 to 3 times their budget to be profitable. There are a lot of costs not involved with the actual production. Promotion is a big one.So if they can get to 600 or so they should be doing okay. I’m not sure I see that happening.
Yea I mean either way, the movie is a failure. Companies don’t spend hundreds of millions of dollars to just break-even. They likely projected a sizable profit that they’re going to miss.
This just in: Flash II will feature a nude suplex!
It turns out they have plenty of footage of Ezra Miller doing that already.
Giving or receiving?
It’s definitely lost money with how long they’ve had it mildewing while waiting for Miller to be promotable again.
So we likely won’t be seeing Ezra Miller return, then…?[/sarcasm, of course we won’t, they’re career is dead in the water]
And with that, Ezra Miller’s movie career is over…*puts on sunglasses David Caruso style*IN A FLASH!
Is the movie any good? I’m one of the many who hasn’t gone to see it.
Strangely, maybe ironically, perhaps inevitably, the movie has split audiences. Personally, I think it’s shockingly bad, considering how much it was hyped, but I’ve seen people say they really liked it.
I haven’t seen it, but after it was screened at ComicCon there was a, shall we say, suspicious number of rapturous social media posts talking about how brilliant and wonderful and iconic the film was. And I just got a sense that publicists were getting desperate.I’m sure it’s fine, but not rapturous.
I suspect it’s largely predicated on how nostalgic you are for Keaton’s Batman. The problem is, they focused all the marketing on his presence, but forgot that his films are over 30 years old, so most under-25s just don’t give a shit. If they’d brought back Bale (or maybe even Gordon-Levitt) instead, it might well have been a totally different story.
I think it’s pretty good, though inessential. I don’t really get the complaints that “The DCEU is ending, why should we even care about this?” but it still remains true that almost every big surprise in the movie is a cameo, and not a hook for a later entry. It’s funny, but not as funny as it could have been. It has some well done emotional scenes, and great performances all around. But it was hailed by several people as one of the best superhero movies of all time, yet it happened to come out in the wake of two vastly superior superhero movies just this summer, and I think all other reasons aside, its box office cratering is karmic retribution for that bit of hubris
If you could separate the movie from all it’s real world failings, I’d recommend seeing it in theaters. It’s a perfectly fine way to spend 2.5 hours, if you’re into this sort of thing. But considering the real world circumstances, I recommend stealing it if you want to see it, and skipping it if you’re on the fence.
Honestly, I enjoyed it way more than any of the other DC Justice League related films. It was more fun and lighter than those others, even when it got ‘heavy’, imo. As much of a mess as the lead is in real life, they are undeniably charismatic in the role(s). But, as much as I didn’t care for the other DC/Snyder jams, this is faint praise….this movie is still a mess.
I had a great time watching it, despite (or more accurately, before I noticed) every news outlet’s increasingly artless attempts to steer me away from it.
I was actually hoping this would do well if only so we don’t give Zaslav more reasons to hatchet WB. Now he’s going to axe Adult Swim or something to make up for The Flash’s losses.
The Flash is now duking it out for the ignominious title of “worst box office drop for a superhero movie this century” with, you guessed it, Sony’s Morbius.Maybe The Flash just needs a good meme to get butts back in seats like with Morbius and ‘It’s Morbin’ Time’.How does “it’s Flashin’ Time” sound?
Hiiii, so movie studios split the gross with exhibitors pretty much right down the middle. So when considering the profitability of The Flash, divide every number in this article in half. Also, the marketing costs, sitting at an announced number of one hundred and fifty million dollars, have to be considered. The idea that The Flash will not lose money is insane to anyone who has even a bit of knowledge. WBD will lose hundreds of millions of dollars on this movie; depending on what happens from here, it could be among the biggest bombs of all time. No one will ever see this because of the outdated “greys” system that protects the writers here from facts and opinions they prefer not consider. But it seems like curiosity or professional pride should have kept you from tossing out such ignorant and value-free analysis.
Schadenfreude is sweet, but really, as Bill Goldman said of Hollywood, “Nobody knows anything.” If The Flash had been a huge hit, the brilliance of Warner Bros. would be being trumpeted, and everyone in town would be wanting to do business with Ezra Miller.