DC Studios probably isn't thrilled by the poor showing at the opening weekend of the box office for its new, DC Extended Universe-star studded, high-budget bomb The Flash (the film made only $139 million worldwide). The studio is most likely even less enthused about the fact that the only thing trending on Twitter in reaction to the film's release is an apparent rekindling of the feud between Dwayne Johnson and James Gunn for control of DC after the latest lackluster release.

For those out of the loop on the high-profile beef, there was a pretty intense showdown recently for control of the future of DC — led by Dwayne Johnson in one camp, and James Gunn in the other. Dwayne Johnson's vision for the superhero studio, as reported by Variety, was a multi-film showdown building up the rivalry between Superman and Johnson's character Black Adam. James Gunn, on the other hand, wanted to take the studio in another direction not involving Black Adam nearly as heavily. James Gunn's camp won when he and Peter Safran were promoted to co-heads of DC Studios after Black Adam's own lackluster performance at the box office (which made $140 million globally in its first weekend of release).

But now, in hindsight, fans of Dwayne Johnson (or at least DC fans on Team Rock in this particular squabble) are quick to point out how much better Black Adam performed under the circumstances than the much higher profile and heavily promoted The Flash. They are busy taking to Twitter to make their arguments today.

Among fans' grievances are the fact that Black Adam came out last October, at a time during the pandemic when moviegoers were still cautiously and hesitantly going back to theaters. It was considered a box office dud due to its poor profit margin, even though it made $391 million worldwide against a $195 budget plus $40 million in reshoots. That haul still made it one of the top ten grossing movies of 2022.

As one heavily-viewed Twitter comment on the topic pointed out, “Black Adam bombing was a combo of bad marketing, damaged brand and weak word of mouth and it still made more than all these other movies with bigger characters and no China. So now looking back maybe it wasn't really such a big flop and The Rock does have power to bring people in.”

That comment was in response to another popular post on the subject that read, “He [The Rock] said ‘The hierarchy of power in the DC Universe is about to change' and his movie made more than Shazam 2 and a movie featuring most of the Justice League (The Flash) so maybe he was cooking after all.”

Another amusing thread used a clip from HBO's Succession to imagine what the next Warner Bros. Discovery board meeting would look like if James Gunn, Peter Safran and Dwayne Johnson were all there following The Flash's poor debut.

Other DC fans though point out that The Flash's weak performance may have had more to do with star Ezra Miller's several unsettling recent arrests and character issues.

The Den of Nerds Twitter account questioned whether “the WB is regretting going with Gunn over Rock?” But another user chimed in, “If The Rock were in charge we would've been getting Black Adam vs Superman movies for the rest of our lives so nah WB isn't regretting anything.”

Hard to say who or what is really to blame for The Flash's dismal opening weekend showing, but one thing is clear — DC Extended Universe fans want to see better feuds between their favorite superheroes on screen and fewer behind the scenes of the studio.