After pulling in a decent, if unimpressive, showing of $9 million in Thursday previews (that start at 3pm, are these even “previews” anymore or do movies just open on Thursday now?!) it looks like The Flash will be another miss for the DCEU as it is tracking, as of right now, to open with just $64 million (per Deadline). To put that into perspective, Black Adam, a movie that was deemed a pretty substantial bomb, opened with $67 million back in October.
There is no sugar coating it, that number is pretty bad for what is a tent pole sized summer super hero movie. I get that The Flash is a deep roster super hero, but with a budget that is rumored to be well over $200 million, that opening just won’t cut it. The question is what tanked this release? I know many people are taking a stand against Ezra Miller in the wake of the myriad of allegations against the films star, but it is also the fact that many people are just sick of this DCEU. We have wasted our time and money on something that just didn’t work and audiences have let it be known with their wallets that they aren’t going to waste their time with stories that just don’t matter.
I did see the movie, and if I am being honest, I enjoyed it for the most part. I am a big fan of Michael Keaton as an actor in all of his projects, so seeing him back in the cape and cowl was a big reason I wanted to see this movie. I also think the director, Andy Muschietti, is incredibly talented. I enjoyed his debut feature Mama and thoroughly enjoyed his take on Stephen King’s It not to mention his stellar work as a Production Assistant on the Madonna classic Evita! There was a lot to unpack in the movie, none of which I will spoil for you here, but I actually like “fan service” in movies, some people hate it, not me, give me something that makes me smile, and this movie certainly did that in several very surprising ways. We will see if Saturday numbers improve, and with Monday being a holiday in the United States, The Flash will have a chance to improve on these numbers, but I think all eyes will be on the overseas numbers to see if The Flash can perform better abroad.
Second place isn’t looking very rosy either for the folks at Pixar as their latest film Elemental looked to also be coming in bit soft with just a $33 million opening weekend. The day is still young and walk up business can potentially get this one closer to my original prediction, but this looks like it may be another disappointment for Pixar studios. No wonder they already announced Toy Story 5 is coming soon! (You can check out our own Chris Bumbray’s review of the film here, where he mentions that the short film that plays before Elemental is Carl’s Date, which works as an epilogue to their hit film Up, that he says is worth the price of admission alone.)
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse continues its stellar run at the box office with a third weekend that is looking like it will be just shy of $30 million, chalk that up to incredible word of mouth that could potentially be stealing thunder from other animated films *cough* Elemental *cough*!
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts looks to have a fairly large drop off of over 65% with a predicted 3-day total of just over $20 million. It’s looking like international numbers are not too bad for this seventh film in the franchise as it has pulled in over $120 million in international grosses. While The Little Mermaid continues its impressive North American run with what’s looking to be around $13 million, or just a 43% drop off.
The other new release of the week, The Blackening, is coming in at around $5.5 million, which is pretty low for a new horror release, but when you consider the minuscule $5 million budget, it’s not that bad.
Did you see The Flash yet this weekend? If so , let us know what you thought in the comments section and don’t forget to check back tomorrow when we have a full run down of this weekends box office numbers.