The Flash continues to make headlines as much as the character himself would in Central City. Despite the doubling down on marketing and hype that Warner Bros. pushed on the scarlet speedster, The Flash proceeds to grow in infamy from its pre-release controversy to its poor box office performance. The comic book film is reportedly taking a sharp 71% drop in just its second week after an already dismal opening. It is said to be doing less business than this year’s already notorious DC flop, Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
Although it seems that things couldn’t get worse for the film, ScreenRant reports that the entirety of The Flash had leaked online and was posted to Twitter. The video was posted to the now-suspended Twitter account, @BriYoshFR, and stayed up for around eight hours and garnered 1.7 million views before it inevitably got taken down. The leaked video was made available on Sunday, June 25, before being removed at 1 PM ET.
The million-plus views that the leak attracted just means less and less tickets sold for the movie that has already cost the studio a substantial sum. The drop in numbers in the second week is being compared to Morbius, the movie-turned-meme-magnet that stars Jared Leto as a Spider-Man villain in a solo outing that failed to generate interest, even in the intended demographic, and would end its domestic run with a total $75 million.
Warner Bros. would also put a couple projects on reserve had The Flash become a success at the box office. The studio says that the sequel has already been written and would involve the return of Michael Keaton’s Batman and Sasha Calle’s Supergirl. In addition, it was reported that the company was planning to capitalize on Michael Keaton’s reprisal with a big screen adaptation of the late 90s animated show Batman Beyond, which saw an aged Bruce Wayne take on a protégé for a new era of crime fighting in future Gotham, and Keaton would’ve filled the role of the elder Bruce.
This leak followed a series of leaked images from pre-release screenings that revealed huge spoilers just as The Flash was about to open. The early screenings would also spawn unintended word-of-mouth about the film’s controversial cameo appearances as well as distractingly underwhelming CGI. The future is uncertain for this entry in the DCEU, but with theatrical windows getting shockingly short nowadays, perhaps we will see the movie get a mercy release on the streaming service Max sooner than expected.