The Flash had a disappointing opening weekend at the box office when it opened last week, grossing only $55 million domestically against a $200 million dollar budget. Now in the second week of its release, it’s dropped off even more. Since this movie and its parent studio, Warner Brothers, are completely cursed these days, I felt more than a little bit of Schadenfreude. They’re on track to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. Would the studio have been better off shoving the movie onto “Just Max” or not releasing it at all? Walk with me as we learn just how badly this movie tanked on its second weekend, courtesy of Coming Soon:
The Flash may end up losing Warner Bros. $200 million at the end of its box office run.
The new DC superhero movie starring Ezra Miller as Barry Allen/The Flash and Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman has premiered in theaters. During its opening weekend, it grossed an underwhelming $55 million at the domestic box office. In its second weekend, that dropped 72% to a mere $15.3 million, with some pundits already predicting this will be a box office bomb.
According to Luiz Fernando, the film is estimated to earn $280-310 million globally in its theatrical run. When pitted against The Flash’s $200-220 million production budget, $150 million in marketing, and the fact that studios don’t take all of their box office haul, the movie may lose $200 million for Warner Bros. Fernando believes they may have lost less money by releasing it on Max or not releasing it at all.
We been knew, as they say. Why WB released this film while canning Batgirl, I will never understand. Ezra Miller’s behavior has been heinous for years. The fact that David Zaslav didn’t see the writing on the wall after Miller was out there on a crime spree for months getting restraining orders and felony burglary charges… it just shows what a bad leader Zaslav is. In case anyone had any doubts. A combination of superhero and multiverse fatigue, overexposure of the character (The Flash TV show was on the CW forever!) and a deeply problematic star? That’s box office poison for sure. But these jokers asked for it, the second they took their bottom line more seriously than whatever crimes their star was committing.
To borrow a phrase from a band I loved in middle school, the only thing worse than beating a dead horse is betting on it. That’s exactly what Warner Brothers did. They bet on something that was sure to fail and what did it get them? I know the sunken cost fallacy is very hard to override psychologically, but if there were ever a time to cut one’s losses, it was with this movie. While we’re here I’d just like to say that Batgirl‘s star, Leslie Grace, is by all accounts a lovely young lady. Batgirl also cost about $90 million before marketing. I’m not a math genius, but some back-of-the-napkin calculations reveal that it would have been much easier to make back $90 million at the box office than $200 million with a disgraced star.
Photos via Instagram/WB and credit Avalon.red
Ugh. I’m so over these cinematic universes. You could also compare this failure to the failure of Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile and Armie Hammer. They deserve monetary pushback for hiring people like this.
+1
I completely agree! I wish more studios suffered consequences after hiring problematic people when there are literally thousands of actors and actresses looking for work! Honestly, fuck them.
I agree that the studios should suffer for their ill-fated casting decisions, but hadn’t Death on the Nile long wrapped when Armie Hammer’s scandal broke out? I’m pretty sure they had already had several delays due to the pandemic and then this was the final nail in the coffin (they couldn’t just cut him out of the film since he had a central role but took him out of promotion, posters, marketing etc,,)
I seem to remember it your way, too, Bishg, that the movie was done and edited and then Armie’s cascade of gross came out.
True, it was only a part of many other reasons! Still, the public knew about the scandal before the film was actually released. And Branagh did hire Johnny Depp for Murder on the Orient Express.
Yes, and I think I read (was it here?) that they edited Hammer’s part down before the release. I did enjoy Death on the Nile despite him. I never watched Orient Express.
What’s with this piling on of Kenneth Branagh Branagh for hiring these men he had no idea about?
Murder on the Orient Express was filmed while he was still married to Amber Heard. They hadn’t split up and she was with him filming.
Y’all really do like to reach without facts.
@Bingo I don’t really think this is “piling on,” but I do want to point out that we knew Johnny Depp was an a**hole long before his divorce from Heard.
I was cackling at this steep decline. Ezra committed multiple crimes but the studio cleaned up their mess only to have it blow up in their faces. Wasn’t James Gunn sticking his stupid neck out there along with bother clowns touting this as the greatest superhero movie of all time?? Isn’t this the movie they said Tom Cruise was raving about? These were all red flags 🚩. Don’t get me wrong. I love superhero movies but even I’m a little exhausted.
Also cackling here, BlueSky.
What’s so gross is that clearly the room where decisions about green lighting Ezra Miller’s The Flash (and red lighting Leslie Grace’s Batgirl) probably resemble a bunch of people that look like Ezra Miller. And it’s clear that these people were able to empathize with EM after the violence, grooming, sexual crimes, drugs, weapons, etc, in a way that left no room for someone unproblematic like LG. I am so glad that this time WB failed!
It’s clear now that they tried hyping up this movie. I’ve heard from people who have seen it that it’s decent but kind of silly. The fact that James Gunn said this is the greatest superhero movie of all time makes me seriously worried for the future of the DC universe.
Considering that DC is likely throwing insane amounts of cash at James Gunn right now, I’d take that comment with a grain of salt.
Check it out, Zaslav – it looks like the majority of the viewing public has morals after all. Shame, that.
Yes, we have more morals than David Zaslav for sure.
I am so shocked that the same guy (David Zaslav) behind the Trump town hall days after he was found liable for sexual assault was also backing Ezra’s crime spree…
Zaslav is very predator friendly!
Well, well well, look at their poor decisions coming back to bite them on the a$$,
I love a good superhero film and I love all sorts of other films too. Personally my issue is not superhero fatigue but poor storytelling and increasingly poor effects. Film budgets and run times are out of control and someone needs to make some smart choices (someone who knows how to tell good stories on screen) rather than assuming throwing more money at them and making films longer and longer will deliver a viable product, not to mention a good film that people want to spend time watching.
I’m glad this turned out this way. There’s a 9-10 year Flash TV show with a very likeable star, and Ezra Miller is a predator. DC also doesn’t seem to want to deviate from failed Marvel competition to come up with their own strategy for good fun storytelling within their comic universe. Money will make them listen if good sense and reason won’t work.
I would rather watch paint dry… so so bored of superhero comic book films.
Yes, the fans/family market is there but really- you cannot pay me to get in line at a movie theatre for yet another repetitive, same tedious plot line, CGI effects featuring a ‘method’ actor in injection molded plastic ever again.
Even if you don’t consider the mess with Ezra Miller this movie looks bad. This is basically copying the plot of Spiderman: No Way Home? Folks are just seemingly incapable of making a watchable DC movie.
I love me a little karma .
One counterpoint: the film received very strong reviews, despite the fact we readers here are obviously not the target demo for the genre
but the larger issue is that movies are made by hundreds if not thousands of people, and are we cool w negating what they all did bc one of those thousands went through a mental (and yes, criminal) breakdown?
I loathe Zaslav and what he’s been doing to WB but as far as trying to salvage the work of these *other* artists (irrespective of what they did to Batgirl) I thought it was worth the effort, esp when they kept Miller out of all publicity save for a photo call at the premier
Susan stop Ezra spent a long time grooming their victims it was not them having a mental breakdown. Thousands of people worked on Batgirl and Leslie Grace did nothing wrong only for her movie to be shelled.
Yes I’m cool with negating their work if that means a predator get held accountable for their actions and the victims get justice. Because a lot of time these predators, actions are overlooked, and they get more power continue to create more victims.
@Susan. This is solely the studio’s fault. The superfans who initially were excited about this movie and who religiously spend their time and money supporting these franchises (incl paying to see the movies multiple times plus buying merchandise), TOLD the studio several months ago to dump Ezra or they wouldn’t support the movie. This was while Ezra was still committing crimes left and right. They even suggested the popular Grant Gustin, the CW’s Flash as a replacement. The studio refused bc it cost them $200m to make and they were close to finishing. I think someone said it would cost like $100m more to reshoot bc Ezra is in almost every scene. Still, the studio forgot how the superfans tanked Ben Affleck’s Batman when they insisted on releasing it anyway after a huge backlash – they thought he would make a terrible Batman and they were right.
Storylines aside, I just don’t understand how the CW does so well with casting and Warner Bros refuse to get it right. Pity, I’m not a superfan but I would have loved to have seen Michael Keaton’s Batman cameo.
I was mostly interested because of Michael Keaton. But Ezra’s behavior and the way they cut Henry Cavill has turned me off spending money on that mess. Grant Gustin should have been given the role.
Susan, The Flash started filming just after the world watched him choke a woman in Iceland in 2020. At the time, the world was entering lockdown due to Covid. The studio, which had been trying to make this movie for years and had to wait for EM’s Fabulous Beast stuff to finish, did nothing. After filming in 2022 EM seemed to totally derail. Grooming, sexual assault, physical attacks, weapons, endangering small kids, theft, drug in several different geographic locations…WB was still apparently hoping this would all disappear or something because they only got involved well afterwards. None of this is sympathetic towards the people who worked on that film, but as with Batgirl, they were paid. That was what the studio literally said (that they were paid) when they destroyed that movie: why have more sympathy for the people who worked with EM than on any other film? And many fans wanted EM replaced.
@Susan, I wish all those talented not-on-camera people had better material to work on.
I think they are going to lose more than the $200 million they put a lot of money into trying to make Ezra’s crimes disappear not to mention the bots they paid to flood the internet to drum up support/simply for Ezra. Also the $90 million they spent on Batgirl only to shelve it.
The executives were not thinking. The Flash show just ended after 9 years and wrapped everything up. They should have waited a couple of years before releasing a solo film about the Flash giving the fans time to miss it.
+1
Strike 1: Ezra Miller. Strike 2: The Flash- a dull idea for a superhero, when superhero fatigue is already well entrenched. Strike 3 The Multiverse- Eugh, again? At this point it’s just a convenient way to have a high stakes narrative where you can roll back the outcome. They need to do much better than this to get my ticket money.
Yeah, the problem with Marvel and DC’s Multiverse is that eventually, nothing really is at stake–and audiences have less and less reason to care. Sure it’s profitable, but in the long run, it’s the law of diminishing returns. Why should viewers invest time/money/interest in a narrative where anything can happen, characters resurrect constantly, and consequences don’t hold? And that’s before you take in account that one has to be steeped in previous lore to get a lot of what is going on in any one installment.
I refuse to watch anything with EM. Their crimes are inexcusable. Before this movie came out, my husband really wanted to go because *Michael Keaton*. He also genuinely loves all things superhero.
However, there is a person we know who also committed horrible crimes against minors and my husband is completely grossed out by that person. It was a lot of taking about how you can’t give this movie your money and gloss over everything EM did while holding someone you know in real life to account. I hope that many people felt the sane and this is why it’s tanking. I’m so tired of money trumping morals.
In the end, my husband didn’t go and I could not be more proud of him.
Excellent headline!
I hope they lose a fortune.
Serves them right completely!
Miller should be facing prison and the Studio should have shelved this project.
So is Ezra Miller still getting work? I don’t see anything in progress on their Wikipedia page. Nor their imdb page, but does imdb show future work?
nonsense.. good (event great ) movie.. much better than the last Thor one I saw..
I have no interest in this movie and like someone pointed out above I am not their target demo. But I also know, it will most likely be on a streaming service / Disney + in a few months. So I would rather just wait and watch it in the comfort of my own home. Which I won’t since Ezra is a gross predator that got pass after pass where others would be drummed out of the business without a second thought.
Hollywood men will never NOT cape for each other. They will try to sweep over ANY depth of depravity any of them sinks to. I swear it makes me not want to watch any Hollywood production whatsoever because I’m at the point where I have to assume they are all sick. The only place to hit this men is in the wallet. They have zero morals and that is the one and only thing they care about.
They do deserve to lose hundreds of millions of dollars for supporting a pedophile, rapist kidnapper.
I won’t watch The Flash because:
1. Criminal Du Jour Ezra Miller
2. How WB did Henry Cavill wrong – He WAS Superman. We deserved Man of Steel 2
3. How WB did Gal Gadot wrong – HOW can they get rid of her as WW?
4. How WB did Ben Affleck wrong – He deserved his own Batman flick
5. How WB did Ray Fisher wrong – He was an excellent Cyborg
6. How WB did Zach Snyder wrong – We need a Justice League 2
7. I hate that James Gunn now calls the shots at DC
8. I hate James Gunn – Guardians of the Galaxy is the worst part of Marvel
9. Still pissed about Josh Whedon/Justice League
10. I will never forgive James Gunn for hiring a budget version of Henry Cavill when the original was RIGHT THERE
Heh–Warner Bros. is simply not set up to do an overarching superhero franchise. Too many middle-management cooks who really can’t cook; too many competing agendas, no unifying Feige-type head, bad talent choices–and no real driving overall vision or sense of what the DC-verse should be.
There is no superhero fatigue for movies that people want to see. Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3 did great. The latest Spiderman animated movie is doing great.
There probably IS some superhero fatigue for movies people aren’t sure they want to see, and the “brand” for DC superhero movies isn’t great.
They’ve made too many joyless, colourless slogs for audiences to gamble another $15 of their entertainment budget on.
Agreed. If a superhero movie is truly innovative (Spiderman: ATSV) or wraps up a hero’s journey in a satisfying way (GOTGV3) people will turn out. But promising the same-old-same-old is asking for trouble.
Just like Zeslav has ruined CNN and TCM , imo he’s ruining the Warner Bros enterprise. With HBOs GOT and so many amazing original content, they were unstoppable at one point in time. One of the reasons why I stopped watching CNN as I think he’s a closeted Trumper.
The ironic thing is…is I would have made an effort to see Batgirl. 🤷♂️
The movie was fantastic … yes I know Miller is problematic but the film itself is fine.
Bully for you. Shame you couldn’t pay me $100 to sit in a theatre and watch a masterpiece starring Ezra Miller.
Wait! Wait! Wait! Perhaps they can… recast the next movie and… wait!! Re-imagine this script with different lighting! The outfit he wears will be… ORANGE!!!! I smell BOX OFFICE GOLD, baby, GOLD!!!!!
Yes, that was sarcasm.
Ezra never really was believable as THE FLASH in the first place. It makes you wonder if the casting people have ever even looked through a FLASH comic book. Secondly where was the advertising for the film? No hype plus a mediocre movie always equals a film tanking at the box office!