Current Events > Did Flash bomb cuz of movie quality or Ezra unpopularity?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Personally I enjoyed the film, and I didnt think people cared that much about Ezra one way or the other; but so many people are blaming him that Im starting to wonder.

One thing is I think DC just needed to do a hard reboot, instead of whatever they were setting up with this film. Right now theyre just confusing people, and they need to separate themselves completely from the Snyder era.

Both

Ezra boycott and thats really not hard to understand

It didn't help but I think it would have flopped regardless.

CreekCo posted...

Ezra boycott and thats really not hard to understand

This is, and I mean this honestly, the first time in my entire life Ive ever seen an entertainment boycott actually go successfully.

So Im legitimately surprised.

Ezra Miller has almost nothing at all to do with it. The vast majority of people who see superhero movies in theaters would have no idea about his issues or maybe vaguely remembered some headline but dont give a shit. Lots of DC movies do poorly at the box office and Flash is no exception.

Punished_Blinx posted...

It didn't help but I think it would have flopped regardless.

Exactly. If Ezra didn't fuck up royally, the movie would have done well in the first week and then absolutely tank its successive weeks.

It's just not a good movie.

The general audience probably doesn't know shit about Ezra Miller and all that mess. But they're definitely aware of how bad DC movies tend to be.

Smashingpmkns posted...

The general audience probably doesn't know shit about Ezra Miller and all that mess. But they're definitely aware of how bad DC movies tend to be.

Can confirm about not knowing about this "Ezra" fellow.

But, I do like the Batman movies.

It's several factors, including general superhero burnout and even worse went it comes to DC. Ezra's stuff ads to it plus zero press from both Miller and Keaton.

This is flopping really badly, but has already made more than Shazam 2, Bird of Prey, WW 1984 and The Suicide Squad. Though a lot of those were limited releases with some entire regions being streaming.

I think Black Adam has been the most successful DC movie in years outside The Batman and Joker.

yea, I don't think it's because of Ezra.

Black Adam and Shazam 2 also did poorly; the DCEU just has a bad reputation right now, and the poor to middling reviews aren't helping.

The DCEU is in shambles, and The Flash wasn't the movie that was going to help its reputation whether Ezra Miller was involved or not.

HornyLevel posted...

It's several factors, including general superhero burnout and even worse went it comes to DC. Ezra's stuff ads to it plus zero press from both Miller and Keaton.

This is flopping really badly, but has already made more than Shazam 2, Bird of Prey, WW 1984 and The Suicide Squad. Though a lot of those were limited releases with some entire regions being streaming.

Three of those movies released during the height of the pandemic lol

The quality.

None of those boycotts ever have any real effect. Your average person going to the theater has no awareness that Ezra Miller is even involved in any sort of controversy. They probably barely know his name to begin with.

It just flopped because it's another poorly written DC movie like most DC movies. The only time this universe had good movies was when they employed on of the best directors of all time, Christopher Nolan, to make them.

They were then somehow able to make the best superhero movie of all time and then just proceed to produce shit again going forward indefinitely.

Here are a list of some contributing factors:

Batman Vs Superman
Suicide Squad
Shazam
Shazam 2
Aquaman
Justice League
Wonder Woman 1984
Birds of Prey
The Batman

DC movies have been a shambles for a long time. The only one in recent memory that was good was The Suicide Squad. If you exclude that, the last one that was actually good was in 2008.

Smashingpmkns posted...

Three of those movies released during the height of the pandemic lol

Which is why I brought up streaming, since a lot of the box office for those was from overseas, where they opened up much quicker.

The Batman made almost $800 million and that was released simultaneously on streaming.

After the massive $1.15 billion for Aquaman in 2018, those are the only DCEU movies outside Shazam from 2019, which did $400.

DC soured their brand this was a step in the right direction but Marvel put out like 12 hits in a row that you can watch as stand alone movies and still be cool. DC cant even put out 2 good movies in a row nvr mind a cohesive story

I don't think Ezra had as much to do with it as opposed to the fact DC has been very very open about the fact this movie basically doesn't matter in the scheme of their forthcoming DCU films with James Gunn and such.

Flash also isn't extremely popular in the general cinematic universe as far as I know, so that didn't help. Also children / younger millennials probably didn't get dragged in by Michael Keaton reveals and Christopher Reeve rumors.

Ezra was definitely a part, but sometimes areas of the internet where this stuff matters fails to remember they're a very niche part of the world.

there is 0 trust in the dc brand, actor matters significantly less, ezra being a trash ass human just makes it easier for people to justify not watching it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf3NzMlZTkM
The Ezra stuff begins at about 8 and a half minutes in and goes through most of the video.

The movie was fine and Ezra didn't annoy me as much as he did in the Justice League movie (I only saw the first, "theatrical" cut so the revised Snyder cut may have fixed this). It definitely had some laughably cheap CG, particularly during any of the time travel portions. As awesome as Keaton was, I think Ezra's acting was just as enjoyable.

Flash breaking records! Just not the records anyone in their right mind would like to break!

https://thedirect.com/article/the-flash-box-office-flop

Andy Muschietti's The Flash is currently projected to become Warner Bros.' biggest flop in studio history.

The Flash - $200 million (estimated)
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword - $153.2 million
Wonder Woman 1984 - $137 million
The Matrix Resurrections - $130 million
Jupiter Ascending - $120 million
The Suicide Squad - $120 million
Space Jam: A New Legacy - $111 million

Fernando mentioned that The Flash's hefty $150 promotional budget may not even be recouped by box office earnings, and WB would've "lost less money releasing it on Max or not releasing it at all."

Fucking lmao

i didnt watch the movie, but i heard it sucks. i know people are avoiding ezra as well but thats probably a lesser influence than the movie being bad

It was me, I did it.
I haven't watched a movie in cinema the last 15 years.

Ezra, poor quality, dead series that no one cares about anymore, superhero fatigue, etc

Take your pick.

If you pay attention to entertainment news, you knew about the reboot coming for DC before deciding whether to watch the Flash. If you cared about the Flash, you've probably seen the zillion seasons of the CW show using a different version of the Flash. If neither of those describes you, your first exposure to the Flash might have been watching the Justice League, in which case you could be forgiven for not wanting to see any more of him (or anyone else in the movie, with the possible exception of Henry Cavil). Or maybe you like the Flash but have either read the comic or watched the animated version of Flashpoint, in which case you might not have felt like watching another version of the same thing for theater prices.

Or you may have known about Ezra's behavior. At that juncture, you would either give the movie a chance or not. If you gave it a chance, then chances are the bizarre antics of the Flash made you uncomfortable in light of how the actor behaves in real life, and on social media or amongst your friend group, you might have had unkind things to say about it.

Superhero fatigue might be a thing, but the Flash came in with a lot of issues that other popcorn flicks don't have. Blue Beetle is going to have similar struggles because of the coming reboot, and because dude + power armor is covered by a rather large number of characters in movies at this point. And in terms of the modern rendition of Blue Beetle, I don't think there is a lot of material to work with.

The Blue Beetle trailer had a featured joke talking down on Batman so no go for me.

Glob posted...

The only one in recent memory that was good was The Suicide Squad

That movie was one of the worst box office crashes in DCU though.

So clearly there's something else besides quality going into it.

Tyranthraxus posted...

That movie was one of the worst box office crashes in DCU though.

So clearly there's something else besides quality going into it.

Mainly being R rated and kinda unappealing for general audiences due to gore

Tyranthraxus posted...

That movie was one of the worst box office crashes in DCU though.

So clearly there's something else besides quality going into it.

You may be right. I dont doubt that there are many factors at play, but I do feel that general quality is one of them.

I don't think anyone cares enough about Ezra Miller's actions to let that dictate their decision to see a movie. I think it's due to everyone knowing the DC films are flopping and rebooting soon, and also waiting for streaming anyway.

CreekCo posted...

Ezra boycott and thats really not hard to understand

Does the general public even know who he is?
It bombed because people have gotten choosier about movies. A lot of stuff has been bombing..

CreekCo posted...

The Blue Beetle trailer had a featured joke talking down on Batman so no go for me.

"Batman's a fascist."
not seeing the lie tho

I personally enjoyed the movie, with two exceptions:

1. The special effects. I've heard people talking about how bad the CGI is, and they are right, it looks like a movie from 10-20 years ago.
2. The second Barry was annoying as hell. I get that's his character, but having a super annoying character as one of your leads isn't the best move.

Overall though I thought it was a solid movie.

McMarbles posted...

Does the general public even know who he is?
It bombed because people have gotten choosier about movies. A lot of stuff has been bombing..

General public isnt as stupid as they are made out to be. GotG 3 *not* bombing seems ignored because it destroys the media narrative. I think most people are sick of being ripped off by high priced concessions, sucky films and Hollywood shenanigans so I agree about people being choosier. I think the Flash just gave people way more reasons not to bother with it than reasons for.

Why would GotG3 bomb?

hyperskate65 posted...

Why would GotG3 bomb?

It didn't

I might not have seen it either way but if Ezra Miller wasn't starring in it I would have considered it

bsp77 posted...

It didn't

I'm aware. I'm asking why would it, maybe I misread the poster above me but they seem to be implying it should've?

hyperskate65 posted...

Why would GotG3 bomb?

Yeah it didnt. The point was the media really tried to play up that it would and put out a lot of bad stuff week one (slow start) but word of mouth really propelled it further. So yeah joe public does actually pay attention.

Ezra was bad casting regardless of their personal life

hyperskate65 posted...

I'm aware. I'm asking why would it, maybe I misread the poster above me but they seem to be implying it should've?

My bad. I missed that.

People were worried it would bomb due to superhero fatigue. I think the success of Guardians and Spider-Verse compared to The Flash, Shazam and Quantumania shows that people are simply more selective about superhero movies now.

Combo of Ezra and DCEU being shit and people not caring anymore, especially since it's being rebooted so these late-stage dceu movies are going nowhere.

bsp77 posted...

My bad. I missed that.

People were worried it would bomb due to superhero fatigue. I think the success of Guardians and Spider-Verse compared to The Flash, Shazam and Quantumania shows that people are simply more selective about superhero movies now.

Pretty much

It's a little of everything. Ezra Miller's controversy + the fact that we already knew James Gunn was rebooting the DC Cinematic Universe, so nobody gives a shit about any movies in this universe anymore.

Black Adam, Shazam 2 and now this were pretty big flops for WB. I expect the same to happen with Aquaman 2

It's a combo of things.

First there was the Ezra Miller issue. And it wasn't just because the Ezra-boycott people. WB's entire promotional campaign around the movie was basically designed to minimize Ezra Miller. WB downplayed them in the trailers. Ezra did zero promotions for the movie. Instead WB leaned heavily on Keaton Batman. But that doesn't really send a very clear message about what your movie is about.

That doesn't combine well with the other factor in that WB had basically declared the movie a vestigial limb to their new Gunn-lead DCEU. Sure, they paid lip service to the film but literally all other discussion about the future of the DCEU basically implied that the Flash didn't matter. But even this wouldn't have been the end of the world if people thought the movie was going to be good but that leads us to problem 3.

The general audience has really low expectations for DC movies right now. The DCEU movies have largely been critically underwhelming and disappointing to audiences. Yes, there are a few bright spots in there but they are definitely in the minority and they were mostly years ago. People just don't trust that these movies will be particularly good.

So you have a movie with a problematic lead, muddied promotions, that probably won't matter and likely isn't good. Not exactly a box-office hit formula.

Another big factor to consider is that the Flash as a character simply ain't that big a draw to the general public; most people only have awareness of DC's big three (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman). And unless they planned on giving the character a major beefcake injection (a.k.a. Jason Momoa turning Aquaman from a decades-long punchline into a leading man overnight almost exclusively through hunkiness), it was going to take some seriously positive word-of-mouth - or the type of goodwill the MCU spent years painstaking cultivating in order to get audiences to care about its 2nd and 3rd-stringers - to sell general audiences on a tentpole blockbuster revolving around the Flash.

HornyLevel posted...

I think Black Adam has been the most successful DC movie in years outside The Batman and Joker.

Which is funny cuz BA is sited by most as being such a spectacular failure.