The latest comic book film from Warner Bros. Discovery and DC Comics is yet another bomb, even as the studio is planning to use the movie as a means of relaunching the DC film universe. Unlike with previous films, the marketing team for the project tried really hard to make this a success, even focusing the vast majority of the trailers and promotions on Michael Keaton’s return to the role of Batman, which is a part he has not played since the early 1990s. Alas, it was to no avail.
John Nolte of Breitbart News covered the film extensively during its release and said that one factor that contributed to its downfall was the fact that the new head of the film universe, director James Gunn, and Warner Bros. Discovery president David Zaslav made a big spectacle of themselves gushing about the project any chance they were given. He added that much of what they said about “The Flash” made it seem as if it were potentially the best comic book film made to date.
Gunn actually stated that “The Flash” is “probably the greatest superhero film ever made.” To say Nolte disagrees with all of the hype would be an understatement.
“The fake entertainment media took some fairly vague comments from Tom Cruise and turned them into a rave. All Cruise said was that The Flash has ‘everything you want in a movie’ and ‘is the kind of movie we need right now.’ BUT… This happened after Zaslav set up a private screening for Cruise, and those are exactly the kind of non-committal comments a seasoned Hollywood veteran makes when cornered,” Nolte said.
Nolte revealed that after the initial wave of positive reviews, which mostly came from people in the industry who he called “gaslighted reviewers” from Comic-Con, the next wave was not-so good. In fact, as of right now, the film is sitting at 67 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregation site that has been known to make or break a film’s performance at the box office.
He then pointed out that “The Flash” was given a B rating from CinemaScore, which might sound fabulous for those of us who went to public school and got Bs on the report card. However, when it comes to movies, Hollywood blockbusters rarely become successful when they are given a B from the outlet. To provide further context, Nolte recounted that the last film from DC/Warner Bros. Discovery, “Black Adam,” was a humongous flop and it received a “B+” from CinemaScore.
Nolte then said, “Ah, but the goodest dogs of them all are over at the far-left Deadline, who spent nearly two days elevating headlines about how The Flash is a big hit about to top $70 million or $80 million over the four-day weekend. Yes, this is another four-day weekend for government bureaucrats, thanks to that stupid Juneteenth holiday.”
The film studio celebrated the outlook of $70 to $75 million during the four day period, seemingly extra excited by the idea that it could hit upwards of $80 million, which is still far, far away from making the movie a success. Over the weekend it ended up only making $60 million, well below the projected numbers.
Some of the mainstream movie media outlets claimed the reason for the box office failure was that many members of the cast were not available to do press to promote the movie. Even “Black Adam,” which didn’t feature a huge crossover of characters like “The Flash” ended up making $63 million on opening weekend. Dwayne Johnson’s highly anticipated film only grossed $168 million here in the U.S. and a total of $393 million across the globe.
Nolte then explained that one of the reasons the film likely did not perform well, aside from the fact that it just wasn’t well done, is that its main star, Ezra Miller, has a criminal record and a history of bad behavior, making him an unlikable guy.
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