Ask any comic book film fan who The Flash‘s greatest enemy is, and you might get an answer like Reverse Flash. General Zod, or Gorilla Grodd if they’re more familiar with the source material. Cheekier answers may come in the form of VFX departments, Ezra Miller’s inability to behave, or superhero fatigue.
But just this past weekend, a brand new enemy has risen from the depths to become one of the newest adversaries of the solo outing for the fastest man alive, and a 29 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes has done little to prevent it from embarrassing one of the DCEU’s last hurrahs.
Indeed, with Meg 2: The Trench‘s opening weekend all wrapped up, the Jason Statham-led monster movie has officially scored a more prominent worldwide debut than Andy Muschietti’s superhero flick.
Despite just a $30 million gross domestically, The Trench found some roaring success overseas with a $112 million opening weekend in international territories, bringing its worldwide gross to $142 million.
Meanwhile, the Flash opened back in June to $55 million domestically but just $75 million internationally, combining for a $130 million worldwide opening weekend and becoming one of the most prolific box office bombs ever. At least Warner Bros. found more than enough salvation in Barbie and Meg 2: The Trench of all things.
Of course, it’s hard to say how much more traction the latest giant murder-shark movie will get beyond the numbers it’s making now. To its credit, it never pretends to be anything more than a movie about Jason Statham eventually getting to go toe-to-tooth with some prehistoric carnivores; it’s simply up to us audiences to figure out if we’re willing to shell out the necessary cinema-going money to see that.
Meg 2: The Trench is now playing in theaters.