Years after it was announced, The Flash has finally come out, but it's not the game-changing film DC was hoping for. Instead of giving the cinematic universe a new lease of life, the Scarlet Speedster's first solo movie went the other way and generated more backlash from everyone by failing at the box office, among other reasons. We take a look below at the biggest reasons why DC's The Flash sunk instead of winning the summer of 2023.
4 massive reasons why The Flash flopped big time for DC
4. Pre-production woes
First announced in 2014 and slated for a 2018 release, The Flash went through a lot of writers and would-be directors before DC settled on Andy Muschietti. These revolving door of creative minds included Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, Seth Grahame-Smith, and Rick Famuyiwa, among others. Turns out, that confusion on who would direct and write The Flash didn't do the film any favors.
All the chaos before the film can ever be shot caused it to miss the 2018 release date. Since then, the DC Extended Universe suffered upheaval after upheaval with the failure of Justice League to generate critical and financial success. All the troubles of the DCEU passed onto The Flash and created a stigma amongst fans that it needed to be an absolute blockbuster to drag DC out of the pit. The thing is, that's impossible and anything less than a complete success just buried its chances of winning the box office.
3. Multiverse-related fatigue
After Avengers: Endgame, Marvel Studios shifted its focus to the Multiverse for its next three phases of projects. Since then, fans have got a wide host of films and series that revolved around this concept. At the same time, viewers are already starting to get fatigued by Multiverse-centric projects.
It doesn't help that DC is late to the game with The Flash. As it stands, all it takes is a couple of years for fans to get tired of the said concept, leaving the DC film to suffer the consequences. It doesn't help too that The Flash wasn't a 10 out of 10, which could have guaranteed success for the entirety of DC. If only the studio released the film earlier, fans could have gotten behind the concept easier instead of following other multiversal projects from Marvel.
2. Spider:Man Across the Spider-Verse
There's no denying that Sony's Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is both a critical and financial winner. But while the project is a surprise hit that exceeded expectations, DC didn't expect it to affect The Flash at all.
It doesn't help that the DC movie was released within close vicinity of Across the Spider-Verse. With the bar set so high, the chances of The Flash hitting it big just became smaller. If it was released along a weaker film, there's no doubt this DC movie could have earned a bigger payday or blew a lot more minds in theaters.
1. Ezra Miller
Perhaps the biggest reason why The Flash didn't earn as much as DC wanted is because of its lead actor, Ezra Miller. Over the past couple of years, the actor has been accused of grooming young girls by giving them drugs and booze, erratic behavior in public, and even choking a woman he got into a fight inside a bar.
All of the controversies snowballed into one big source of negativity, not only for Miller, but for The Flash as well. Even with Miller bowing out of public view before the DC movie came out and not promoting it too, his absence from the marketing effort didn't diminish the negative effect on the project. In the end, Miller's involvement with the film did more harm than good.
With The Flash failing to meet expectations, even earning less than Black Adam within the first week or so, the future isn't looking good for this franchise. It looks like James Gunn has his hands full as the Guardians of the Galaxy director needs to step up and fix DC more than ever. One thing's for sure, though. It looks like we won't be seeing more of Miller in a Flash suit anytime soon.
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