The Flash, which Warner Bros. Discovery spent $200 mill💞ion to make, is a historic . It kinda seems like we’ve been getting a lot of those lately.
Warner Bro. Discovery detonated one in March when only grossed $133.8 million worldwide on a $110-125 million dollar budget, making it one of the lowest-grossing superhero movies of all-time. Black Adam didn’t do quite as badly, but with on a $190-269 million budget, it was another clear failure🍰 for the studio. At this point, the DCEU (which doesn’t include Robert Pattinson’s take on The Batman) hasn’t had a clear home run since . That was five years ago.]
Warner Bros. Discovery isn’t the only studio that’s struggling. Disney, similarly, has seen several misses at the box office in the past year. Elemental hit theaters the same day as The Flash and suffered the whe🤡n adjusted for inflation (though its showed that it may have legs). But animated flops have been more common than hits for Disney in recent years, as Lightyear and Strange World also failed to recoup production costs.
The MCU, until recently an unassailable box office titan, has also seen disappointing returns for the House of Mouse in 2022 and 2023. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania bombed with $476.1 million on a $200 million budget. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has been a big success for the studio, but will likely end its run making less than its predecessor despite costing $50 million more. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Thor: Love and Thunder significantly underperformed their predecessors, and unless The Marvels has really good buzz, it’s tough to see it reversing the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:general downward trend.
The Little Mermaid, another movie in another once reliable genre (the Disney live-action remake), has also underperformed for the studio. Though previous adaptations of the studio's iconic '90s animated films have cleared a billion dollars, The Little Mermaid has seen more middling returns, with on a $250 million budget.
That may sound good — it's double the budget, after all — but it's important to remember that a studio tends to spend about as much to market a film as it does to make it. So, a movie like The Little Mermaid needs to make about $500-600 million (or more) to even begin to turn a profit. Disney isn't spending $250 million just to break even, and neither are Warner Bros. Discovery, or Universal (whose Fast X cost an estimated $340 million, and only brought in a little over ), or Paramount (whose Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has only grossed million on a $200 million budget, and whose Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny cost $295 million, but is only ). It's too early to say how the rest of the season will play out. Oppenheimer, Barbie, and Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning may turn things around. But, as it stands, the summer of 2023 is shaping up to be a referendum on Hollywood's ballooning budgets, ugly CG, and over-reliance on IP.
It makes me a little sad to think that an Indiana Jones movie may bellyflop — I've got plenty of affection for the series and for Harrison Ford's iconic character — but The Flash's immolation couldn't have happened to a better would-be blockbuster. It stars Ezra Miller, , including allegations or arrests for assault (on and off camera), disorderly conduct, kidnapping, breaking and entering, grooming, theft, and more. Warner Bros. attempted to get through the release with minimal press from Miller, but .
That level of commitment goes beyond what other studios have extended to stars facing allegations after their films had wrapped filming, like West Side Story lead Ansel Elgort. There are instances where a film can't be recast, and where reshoots are impossible, and pandemic-related delays made those considerations even more difficult. But in the case of Warner Bros. Discovery, which showed itself willing to shelve co🍌mpleted work for a tax wr🐷ite-off with Batgirl, it was clear that the decision to go full steam aꦍhead with Th𝓡e Flash was about money.
In addition to the major allegations and arrests its star dealt with, The Flash is a downright ugly film, aesthetically and spiritually. It has some of the worst CGI I've ever seen and its cameos from long dead actors like Christopher Reeve and George Reeves amount to digital graverobbing. Most audience members didn't avoid The Flash because of its amorality, but it's still a victory for something this craven to be so thoroughly rejected.
Hollywood has needed a wake-up call for a long time. Studio execs have happily let mid-budget movies die, and the adult drama, theatrical comedy, and other kinds of film not driven by established IP have been on life support, as Hollywood dumped buckets of money on franchise movies. The infinite growth mindset that drives capitalism (and especially tech) has taken over Hollywood, resulting in movies like The Flash, Fast X, The Little Mermaid, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny needing to make a billion dollars to be considered successful. That was never sustainable. It may be painful for the studios in the short-term, but it's a blessing for the movie industry to have it all come crashing down so undeniably and so publicly.