The Flash falls behind Spider-Verse on mid-week chart

❘ Published: 2023-06-23T10:10:00

Warner Bros.

There were high expectations surrounding The Flash when it opened, but relative to other superhero movies, the film failed in its opening weekend, while things have got worse this week, thanks to Across the Spider-Verse.

With a budget of more than $200 million, and huge marketing costs on top of that, The Flash needs to gross a fortune to break even. But the DC movie appears to be falling at the first hurdle.

You can read our examination of the film’s opening weekend numbers below. But the news is even worse this week, with The Flash overtaken by both Elemental, and Across the Spider-Verse on Wednesday.

That day Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse grossed $3.8 million putting it in first place. Elemental made $3.5 million, taking second place. And The Flash dropped to third via a $3.1 million gross. Both films were reviewed better than The Flash. And both received higher CinemaScores. Which may factor into this mid-week failure, and doesn’t bode well for the weekend.

Original story follows…

The Flash box office: How much has it made?

The Flash grossed $55 million in US cinemas over it’s first weekend, which is well below expectations for a film of that budget and size. The Flash is now set to earn $22-25 million in the film’s second domestic weekend, which will be a decline of around 60%.

All is not lost. With Variety pointing to previous superhero movies that had soft openings, then blossomed into blockbusters. Citing 2015’s Ant-Man ($57 million weekend, $519 million total), and 2018’s Aquaman ($67 million weekend, $1.15 billion total).

The Flash also has a clear week ahead, with next blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny not hitting until June 30, 2023. However, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 66% – and a deeply average ‘B’ CinemaScore from opening weekend crowds – word-of-mouth is unlikely to be good. Meaning Flash might struggle to build on that opening weekend.

Flash flounders globally

The Flash also failed to ignite the international box office, taking $75 million from $78 markets. Giving the film a global total of $139 million.

Variety compares the haul to previous DC movie Black Adam. That opened to $67 million and failed to pass $400 million, making a loss for the company, and killing a potential franchise stone dead.

The Flash comes hot-on-the-heels of another DC failure – Shazam: Fury of the Gods. But their projects comes thick and fast this year, with Blue Beetle and Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom also releasing in 2023, so there’s still time for Warner Bros to turn a superhero profit.

This article was updated on June 23, 2023 with mid-week grosses.

For more on the The Flash, check out the below articles: