Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | June 19, 2023
It was supposed to save Warner Bros. Discovery and DC alike. We were told it was a masterpiece, one of the greatest superhero movies ever made. The studio kept its tumultuous accused abuser lead actor out of the spotlight for months to prevent further drama. Tom Cruise likes it, you guys! But after all of those dramatics, they just couldn’t make The Flash happen.
Andy Muschietti had the unenviable task of making this train wreck and getting it into cinemas, which is at least a lot further than many of us expected him to get. Still, the general public had no real zeal for this film, as evidenced by its paltry $55.1 million opening weekend from 4,234 theatres. The B CinemaScore doesn’t bode well for positive word-of-mouth either. Indeed, the leaked list of cameos and deepfakes seemed to make most people feel kind of gross about the entire endeavour, and that’s without the Ezra Miller of it all.
This movie was expensive, with a reported budget well over $200 million, and that doesn’t take into account the inevitably costly marketing costs and whatever they had to pay to stop their star from earning more restraining orders. But it’s not the only superhero film of the past year to open with a fizzle rather than a bang. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania fell flat for Marvel, while DC’s Black Adam saw Dwayne Johnson’s super-anti-hero hopes end before they truly began. But he can at least rest easy knowing that, with a $67 million domestic opening, it seems to be faring better than The Flash.
Maybe superhero fatigue is finally kicking in. Maybe DC’s never been able to find that large audience it needs to keep up with its rival. Nobody seemed truly excited for this particular film. I’m sure Miller will take most of the heat for the flopping, but let’s not forget that DC and Warner Bros. kept this person cloistered away for months and went out of their way to protect Miller when they were on a rampage of alleged abuse, stalking, and being caught on video strangling a woman. They invested far more than money into this fire pit.
The other big film of the weekend also suffered. Pixar’s Elemental debuted in second place with only $29.5 million from 4,035 theatres. Reviews weren’t great and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is still pulling in good numbers three weeks into its run. Disney seems to have truly screwed the pooch on Pixar releases. Critically adored titles like Luca and Turning Red were dumped onto Disney+ while the underwhelming Lightyear got a major theatrical rollout despite a total lack of desire from audiences. Disney seems eager to just let a huge chunk of its output be streaming exclusives over the next few years, and Pixar might be the biggest sacrificial lamb on that altar.
Horror comedy The Blackening earned $6 million from 1,775 locations, landing it in sixth place behind The Little Mermaid. Maybe audiences just weren’t wild about going to the cinema this week? Did everyone get stuck on the same bit of Tears of the Kingdom or something? Things fared better for Wes Anderson’s latest film, Asteroid City. Ahead of its wide release, it played in six theatres and earned an impressive $790,000. That’s a $131,666 per-screen average!
This coming week sees the release of Jennifer Lawrence’s raunchy comedy No Hard Feelings.
You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.
