If feels as though barely a day goes by without at least one tale of woe engulfing The Flash, and true to form, there’s another one on the cards.
The disastrous DCU blockbuster was already in free-fall at the box office after spending its first week trying to convince paying customers that it was worth watching to no avail, and things have gotten so bad that if it drops lower than 74 percent this weekend it’s going to snatch a record away from Morbius as the steepest second-weekend drop in the history of the superhero genre.
That’s bad enough as it is, but when you consider that the majority of Marvel and DC titles generally tend to hang around the top one or two spots on the domestic charts for at least a few weeks, The Flash being in real danger of dropping as low as fourth after only a week and change on the big screen is as embarrassing as it gets.
Elemental and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse are currently locked in a battle for the top slot, so there was never any real danger of The Flash winding up higher than third. However, Jennifer Lawrence’s R-rated comedy No Hard Feelings is eying a $15 million debut, so if Andy Muschietti’s comic book adaptation comes out on the lower end of its $14-17 million projections, then it’ll be kicked out of the top three in short order.
At this rate, The Flash isn’t even going to crack $300 million in worldwide ticket sales, ensuring a place in the history books as one of the most colossal flops in cinematic history. Does anyone remember when the hype train was plowing ahead at full speed? It sure seems like a lifetime ago now.