Box Office Report: Spider-Man Hurt The Flash's Feelings

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | June 26, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | June 26, 2023 |

Ooft. Look, after that disappointing opening weekend, we know that The Flash was in a dire position. Warner Bros. bet big on this one and it fizzled on arrival. Audiences just didn’t care. Critics didn’t buy the hype about it being ‘the greatest superhero movie ever’. Ezra Miller was still there. Things started getting desperate almost immediately, with Fandango offering two-for-one tickets to the film in only its second week of release. Yikes.

So, how bad did it get in its second week of release? Well, it sank from number one to three, paving the way for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse to take back the top spot. Yes, in its fourth week of release, Sony Animation’s critically acclaimed multiverse sequel is still pulling in big money. With only a 38.5% drop from the previous week, it earned an extra $19.3 million. That brings its domestic gross to just over $317 million. That’s more than the remake of The Little Mermaid ($270.2 million in five weeks) and Fast X ($144.5 million in six weeks.) When you have great word-of-mouth, this is what happens.

The Flash also sank behind Pixar’s Elemental, which opened poorly but hung on far better in theatres in its second week. The animated comedy saw a 37.6% drop in gross from its opening weekend. By comparison, The Flash fell over 72%. Yup, it was that bad. As I said, audiences do not care. There’s little word-of-mouth, and social media is mostly mocking the bad effects as well as some questionable scenes. Don’t expect Miller to return to the DC Universe any time soon.

Right behind The Flash, at number four, is No Hard Feelings, the raunchy comedy starring Jennifer Lawrence. It grossed $15.1 million from 3,208 theatres (which gave it a higher per-cinema average than The Flash.) A lot of people seem eager to use this film as a barometer of Lawrence’s commercial viability after a long break, but it was always going to be tough to get a $45 million comedy to hit big in the current climate. Adult comedies seem to be yet another thing sacrificed to the altar of Big Content, more likely to be quickly dumped onto streaming or VOD than receive a lengthy theatrical release.

Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City opened wide, and with an extra 1,669 theatres to its name, it saw a staggering 954% increase in gross and added $9 million to the bank. Anderson’s got that power (and the film really is that good, I swear.)

This coming week sees the release of DreamWorks Animation’s Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken and the whip-cracking return of everyone’s favourite archaeologist in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.