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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.
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.
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