Things have been going from bad to worse for the The Flash over the last week, with critical reactions and box office expectations steadily dropping downwards after everyone discovered for themselves that it didn’t live up to the hype.
Even as recently as Friday, the long-delayed DCU blockbuster was pegged to score a three-day domestic opening weekend of around $70 million, but to say it’s fallen short on that front would be an understatement. In fact, even when you factor in two whole decades of rising ticket prices, the Scarlet Speedster’s solo movie is lagging well behind several well-established duds.
By taking in an estimated $55 million from theaters across the country, The Flash has officially failed to match the totals of Ang Lee’s Hulk and Tim Story’s Fantastic Four, a pair of Marvel adaptations released in 2003 and 2005 respectively that were each regarded as a commercial disappointment.
If you want to use DC for comparison, then those numbers are roughly on a par with Zack Snyder’s R-rated Watchmen and Ryan Reynolds’ Green Lantern, the latter of which is regarded as one of the biggest bombs of all-time. It’s only marginally ahead of Batman Forever‘s $52 million first frame, too, and that film released all the way back in the summer of 1995.
Unless international audiences pull out a Hail Mary to save The Flash from unmitigated disaster, then DC is staring back-to-back bombs squarely in the face following the apathetic reception to Shazam! Fury of the Gods, meaning that James Gunn’s reboot can’t come soon enough.
