The Flash Loses Speed With $60M 3-Day Opening: Heres Why

There are a lot of lessons to be learned this weekend, but chief among them, is what’s it like for a major motion picture studio to open a movie with largely a number of its cast, primarily its main star, not available to do press. That’s the big looming question which has been on everyone’s minds in the wake of Ezra Miller’s tabloid laden 2020-2022 in regards to Warner Bros. DC’s $200M The Flash, which isn’t looking good with a 3-day around $60M, off from the $70M-$75M the studio was expecting. The studio is still expecting the Juneteenth holiday to deliver and get the film to $70M over 4-days (if that’s the case, that’s the first time the Federal holiday, which has not proven itself to be a big moviegoing day yet, has yielded a daily gross for a movie north of $10M; last year Universal’s Jurassic World: Dominion made only $8.6M on the Juneteenth Monday holiday). The pic did $24.5M yesterday (which includes Thursday previews). Other studios see these figures lower. Given the $9.7M previews last night, at a glance, it looked like Flash had the potential to over-deliver and beat its weekend estimates, and that’s looking less likely now. Should the movie have gone straight to Warners streaming service Max? Absolutely not. They need to make as much money as they can, and that’s through windows.

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With a SAG-AFTRA strike authorization in place should talks go sideways, and actors not permitted to do press in those situations, the studios, streamers, etc. may want to think twice before playing notorious hardball as this is what happens when your cast isn’t available to promote a major motion picture. Already, San Diego Comic-Con is in check with the unavailability of TV series creators Warners didn’t lean on Miller for The Flash‘s press tour, the star making his first Hollywood appearance post legal troubles at the Monday night premiere of The Flash which was limited to a red carpet photocall (not video or press interviews except a couple of bloggers), but a majority of the cast weren’t available for 360-degrees press we hear.

Know that late night shows going dark during the WGA Strike also compounded Warner’s woes here. While Keaton showed up at screenings for a Q&A in London and Paris, and tubthumped the movie on social, he was busy shooting Beetlejuice 2 for Warner Bros. Sasha Calle, who plays Supergirl, did do press down in Miami and Texas. Where was Ben Affleck? Late night TV provides a fun, not to mention a controlled environment where talent can sidestep any sticky conversations. The reason why many didn’t sit down with a bulk of press is so that they didn’t have to be on the hook for fielding uncomfortable questions about the leading star of the film, Miller. The Flash also didn’t have a $80M-$100M-plus promotional partner campaign like most of these tentpoles do (that said, they had some partners, i.e. Puma with its Flash sneakers), which is essential when it comes to cutting through the noise of summer and opening a movie to big numbers.

But there’s something else going on here with The Flash, billed by co-DC Boss James Gunn back in January as “probably one of the greatest superhero movies ever made,” and that’s that moviegoers disagree, giving it a B CinemaScore and 77% on Comscore/Screen Engine PostTrak exits with a 59% recommend. That buzz, coupled with the fact that The Flash is very male-heavy, and not pulling in as many women as Aquaman and Wonder Woman is slowing it down.

What about the whole multi-universe stuff and bringing back Michael Keaton’s Batman? To the average joe moviegoer, what The Flash is at the end of the day is a movie about a deeper universe DC character, and that’s The Flash. Going deep universe on a superhero movie comes with the risk of posting less than $100M-plus openings, and yes, franchises have to start somewhere, i.e. Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger ($65M) and Thor ($65.7M). Aquaman may have posted a $67.8M 3-day, but it was launched over a Christmas holiday and with previews started with $105.4M over 5-days off an A- CinemaScore. However, you’ll notice heading into the weekend that Warner Bros. DC didn’t announce Flash 2 with filmmaker Andy Muschietti, rather they announced that he’s set to direct Gunn and co-DC Boss Peter Safran’s new Batman, Brave and the Bold.

Look, no studio is envying the position that Warners has been in with The Flash and rivals and marketing peers praise the Burbank, CA lot for running the best campaign possible with fun trailers that sold the movie on chiefly on its superhero The Flash, plus the return of Michael Keaton’s Batman. No one is blaming Warners for tying their shoes together and falling down here. To get the word out, Warners spent big on trailers. iSpot, which monitors what studios shell out on U.S. TV spots (and again, this is just one facet of the The Flash‘s overall marketing campaign expense), shows Warners shelling out $31.3M on spots for the Miller movie which pulled in 1.07 billion impressions. That’s more in iSpot metrics than what Disney spent on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ($24.3M) and Elemental ($12.9M), more than what Paramount expensed on Transformers: Rise of the Beasts ($17.2M), and 3x more than what Sony spent on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ($10.9M). The top networks for Flash spots by impressions were ABC, ESPN, TNT, Fox and NBC while top shows for the DC movie spots were NBA games, SportsCenter, NFL (remember Warners took out a Super Bowl spot), Men’s College Basketball and the Today show.

The Flash played best in the South Central & West. Warners has Imax on the film and together with PLFs we hear both formats are driving 42% of the pic’s gross. The best theater in the country for the DC movie is AMC Burbank with close to $93K so far this weekend including early shows.

Other takeaways from this weekend:

As expected, not just Flash, but Disney/Pixar’s Elemental was neither fire nor glamorous ice with an estimated $30M 3-day after a Friday around $11.8M. 4-day could be $33M. We always knew after the sour reviews out of Cannes this Pixar movie about denizens in a fire and ice world wasn’t going to wow. The entire concept has been hard to win kids and families over with, but even more so, the film feels like a diluted version of the spirited existential stuff we’ve seen from the Emeryville, CA studio with Inside Out and Soul. Very same old, same old. You knew this was going to be bad when we heard about all those layoffs. Who knew we would be living in an era where Illumination would trump Pixar in grosses? Pixar and Disney Animation are indeed still looking to fill the creative hole left behind after John Lasseter’s exit.

Nonetheless, Elemental gets an A CinemaScore plus good PostTrak exits of 85% positive and 68% recommend. Kids under 12 liked it at 92% positive, 62% recommend. We knew it was always mom-leaning with 63% women showing up and 66% between 18-34. Great diversity mix with 32% Latino/Hispanic, 30% Caucasian, 25% Asian/other and 13% Black. Elemental played strongest in the middle of the country and the West.  Elemental had a few PLFs driving 6% of weekend tickets sales while 3D is repping close to 17%. The El Capitan in Hollywood is the top grossing theater with north of $41K so far (including previews).  

The four-day box office with all these holdovers like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (also potential $30M 3-day in weekend 3, $33M 4-day to knock Elemental out of second place) is propelling a near $200M weekend. That’s something for the exhibition business to be happy about with all this product in the market despite the lowers starts for Flash and Elemental.

Lionsgate’s The Blackening did $2.5M yesterday, for what will be $6M-$8M over 3-days. The Tim Story directed horror comedy gets a  B+ CinemaScore and PostTrak of 81% positive and a 64% recommend. 50/50 male-female draw with 60% between 18-34 years old and the largest demo being 18-24 at 31%. The audience mix was 27% White, 14% Latino, 53% Black, & 5% Asian/Other. Blackening played strongest in the East, South & Midwest. 

A great blaze here at arthouses as Focus Features’ Wes Anderson movie, Asteroid City, is posting a massive $120K theater average — the best post pandemic as the pic is set to do $720K at six NYC and LA Theaters and $804K over the four-day. The Tom Hanks, Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Jeff Goldblum, Edward Norton ensemble is book at the newly reopend Sunset 5 which Landmark took over, AMC Centurty City, AMC Burbank, Angelika NY, Alamo Brooklyn, AMC LSQ. Good news for arthouse in LA: The Landmark Sunset 5 led the pack (a full theatre takeover) with an impressive $80K on Friday alone (Pic’s total Friday was $350K).

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