In another universe, “The Flash,” once heralded by its own studio as “one of the greatest superhero films of all time,” would easily top the box office on its second weekend of release.
But in this universe, audiences adamantly reject the Warner Bros. film, which stars Ezra Miller as the cross-time runabout of the same name. Rather than posting a winning lap, the comic-book adventure lands in third place behind Pixar holdovers Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Elemental, and just ahead of Jennifer Lawerence’s new R-rated comedy No hard”. feelings.”
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Over the weekend, The Flash grossed $15.3 million in 4,265 North American theaters, a brutal 73% drop from its unremarkable $55 million debut. That’s a far bigger drop than recent DC adaptations, including Black Adam (59%) and Shazam: Fury of the Gods (69%), which cost the studio large amounts of money.
In the case of The Flash, that’s a disastrous result for the $200 million tentpole because it suggests box office sales won’t recover. To date, the film has grossed a paltry $67 million at the domestic box office and $123.3 million internationally, bringing the worldwide total to $210.9 million.
Part of the problem is that DC’s new leaders, James Gunn and Peter Safran, have voiced plans to restart the comic book universe, and movies like The Flash are on the brink. What’s even worse for the thrashing DC is that two more tent poles are planned for 2023. Blue Beetle, starring Xolo Maridueña as an alien symbiote, launches August 18, and Jason Momoa’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is slated for December. 20
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Overall, it’s a chaotic weekend at the box office, as Sony’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (on its fourth weekend of release, no less) returned to No. 1 with a whopping $19.3 million. To date, it has generated $316 million in North America and $560 million worldwide.
On the domestic charts, the second Spider-Verse film narrowly beat Disney and Pixar animated film Elemental, which stayed in second place with $18.5 million. This brings his domestic amount to US$65 million and his worldwide total to US$121 million. Ticket sales for the second edition were stronger than expected, down just 37% compared to the previous weekend. Unfortunately for Pixar, “Elemental” got off to the worst start (by far) in modern history. So it has to remain the de facto first choice for family audiences to justify its $200 million asking price and restore some confidence in the Pixar brand.
Lawrence’s raunchy comedy No Hard Feelings, also from Sony, took fourth place with $15 million from 3,208 venues. It’s not a bad result for a contemporary theatrical comedy, but analysts had expected more from the $45 million film, which stars one of Hollywood’s biggest names. Earlier this year, Universal’s wild R-rated film Cocaine Bear managed to rake in $23.2 million in its opening weekend without any big-name promises at the marquee.
Directed by Gene Stupnitsky, No Hard Feelings grossed $9.5 million at the international box office in 48 markets. This is a promising turnout as big comedies tend to have limited appeal with international audiences. The pace is 17% above Cocaine Bear and 33% above Good Boys, another R-rated comedy by Stupnitsky, for the same market group at current exchange rates. The UK led all markets at $1.5 million, followed by Australia at $1.3 million and Germany at $1.1 million.
In “No Hard Feelings,” Lawrence plays an unlucky Uber driver who accepts a Craigslist ad to “date” an introverted 19-year-old boy (freshman Andrew Barth Feldman) before he goes to college. Audiences liked the film the most, which received a CinemaScore rating of B+.
“At $45 million before marketing costs, ‘No Hard Feelings’ wasn’t cheap to produce,” said David A. Gross, who runs film consultancy Franchise Entertainment Research. “That’s a big number with these box office results.”
Rounding out the top five was Paramount’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which grossed $11.6 million in 3,523 theaters, down 44% on its third weekend. To date, the seventh “Transformers” installment has grossed $122.9 million at the domestic box office and $218 million internationally. It cost $200 million.
At other domestic box offices, Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City” grossed $9 million when it opened in 1,675 theaters over the weekend. It’s a career high for Anderson, the filmmaker of art house films like The Royal Tenenbaums and The Grand Budapest Hotel. In comparison, his most recent feature, 2021’s The French Dispatch, grossed $2.5 million when it opened in a similar number of theaters.
Set in the 1950s, “Asteroid City” stars Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman, Maya Hawke, Bryan Cranston, and dozens of other Anderson regulars as a cosmic event disrupts a fictional desert city. Audiences – 64% aged 35 or younger – gave the film a mediocre “B” CinemaScore rating.
“It’s fantastic to see Wes Anderson’s best weekend ever at the box office reinvigorate the specialty market,” said Lisa Bunnell, director of sales at Focus Features. “The opening of ‘Asteroid City’ over the past two weekends has been incredibly encouraging and inspiring.”
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