Warner Bros.
The Flash breaks a negative DC film record...and almost Marvel’s
The drop in the box office in the second weekend is the biggest ever for DC, and is second only to Morbius.
Ezra Miller’s peculiar life off-screen, the cameos - some of them crazy -, James Gunn’s confidence in the film... Nothing seems to have been enough for The Flash, which, after a premiere that was anything but rocket fuel, dropped dramatically in its second weekend in theaters, breaking the negative record previously held by David Ayer’s Suicide Squad.
Thus, after grossing $55 million worldwide in its first weekend, the second weekend drop was no less than 72.5%, the largest in the history of DC movies. In fact, it’s almost the biggest in superhero movie history, were it not for Morbius’ 73% drop last year. The contrast with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse, which grossed $300 million in one month, is especially painful.
The Flash, at the height of... the worst
Compared to other DC productions, we find Jonah Hex (69.7%), Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (69.1) or Shazam: Fury of the Gods (69%) in fourth place. Surprisingly, there are some DC films outside of this top ten that can hardly be considered successes, such as Black Adam or Wonder Woman 1984 that didn’t had a drastic drop like Scarlet Speedster’s solo debut.
However, to find the superhero movie with the biggest drop in its second weekend, we have to go back many years to the past, to 1997. That was the release of Steel, the infamous movie starring Shaquille O’Neal in a great moment of popularity, but which obviously did not have to be reflected in a great box office success, especially when the movie is as bad as it was. The movie made only $870,068 on its opening weekend and only earned just $1.7 million domestically.
Fortunately for The Flash, it still has time to make the $200 million it cost to make, but at this rate... it seems hard to believe it can.