SPOILER ALERT: This story mentions a few significant plot developments in The Flash, currently playing in theaters.
In the climax of The Flash, Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) watches helplessly as his timeline-hopping escapades cause several other superhero universes to careen into each other and become obliterated in the process. Ironically, Warner Bros. is facing almost an identical dilemma and the stakes could be nearly as existential.
The Flash is the second of four mega-budgeted DC adaptations the studio is set to release this year, starting with Shazam! Fury of the Gods in March, and followed by Blue Beetle and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom in August and December. Yet these movies were conceived and greenlit by an executive team that all have departed the studio; in their place, new DC Studios chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran have announced they will reboot the DC franchise in 2025, starting with Gunns Superman: Legacy.
Thats left Warners in one of the worst rock-and-a-hard-place conundrums in memory: Its 2023 slate of DC films are now orphans in a moribund cinematic universe, but the studio still needs audiences to see them on a blockbuster scale.
Its a perhaps unavoidable but terrible case of timing, says a source at a rival studio. Audiences dont feel like they have to invest two hours of their life because its not going to matter going forward.
Indeed, things have not been going well. The production budgets and likely marketing spends for these four films will cost between $1.1 billion and $1.2 billion in total, according to experts outside the studio. But Shazam! 2 has already bombed, earning a feeble $133 million globally. And The Flash just opened to a mere $55 million in the U.S. and Canada, grossing $135.7 million worldwide as of June 19 well under expectations, and nowhere near what a film of this caliber and cost needs to approach breaking even.
The movie should be opening at $120 million domestic, says an industry veteran whos worked on many major campaigns. This is an unmitigated disaster. (A spokesperson for Warner Bros. declined to comment.)
The Flash rollout also faced unprecedented difficulties caused by its star. Save for an appearance at a photos-only premiere event this month, Miller has been totally out of the public eye since August, when they apologized to everyone that I have alarmed and upset with my past behavior including multiple allegations of misconduct, abuse and assaultciting complex mental health issues as the reason. Pulling a Christopher Plummer and replacing Miller was a financial nonstarter for Warners. The actor, who plays two versions of Barry, is in practically every scene of the film, and often the only person on-screen. (The studio did have fair warning; Miller was caught on video in April 2020 choking a woman in Iceland, months before The Flash went into production.)
To compensate for the absence of its problematic lead, Warners spent heavily on TV spots during the NBA Finals, and director Andy Muschietti did multiple interviews unreservedly praising Miller. In January, Gunn called the film one of the best superhero movies Ive ever seen Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav didnt bother qualifying, hyping The Flash as the best superhero movie outright at CinemaCon in April.
When they called it the greatest superhero movie if its not correct, youre setting yourself up to fail, says an executive at a different rival studio. In this environment, its better to underpromise and overdeliver.
Perhaps most ominous for Warners, however, is the possibility that audiences are becoming blas about cinematic universes altogether. There have been at least 55 movies based on comic books in the past 10 years alone, most of them part of interconnected mega-franchises that depend on fans flocking to them no matter which superhero is in the title. Not only does The Flash reference events and characters in everything from Justice League to Aquaman, but it relies heavily on the climax of 2013s Man of Steel for its own final act. Similarly, Marvels Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania drew from several past films and the Loki TV series; moviegoers shrugged.
When you have a film set in a multiverse, its asking the audience to recall past films instead of shutting off their brain and enjoying whats in front of them, says Exhibitor Relations analyst Jeff Bock. He notes that The Flashs domestic opening weekend is on par with debuts for other titles that have been part of the wider DC universe, like Black Adam ($67 million) and Aquaman ($68 million). Whereas Joker and The Batman stand-alone films with zero connection to anything else opened to $96 million and $134 million, respectively.
Batman is so strong on its own, it doesnt really need to be tied down with these other characters, Bock says. But that is exactly what Gunn and Safran are planning; Muschietti is set to direct Batman: The Brave and the Bold, one of 10 interconnected film and TV DC titles planned through roughly 2027, including Gunns Superman.
Moving forward, Warners and DC must walk a painfully narrow path. Gunn said recently that the titular character of Blue Beetle is the first DCU character, which could save the film from feeling like a lame duck but also ties it to a cinematic universe that audiences have yet to embrace. Meanwhile, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will conclude the old DC universe for good, but whether it can approach the $1.1 billion global take of 2018s Aquaman without a cinematic future is unclear.
Ultimately, the most important factor remains quality. There can be audience fatigue when it comes to the obligation of having to watch 20 movies to understand a new one, says one exec. But it doesnt matter when the movie is good.
Rebecca Rubin and Zack Sharf contributed to this story.