There are many lessons to be learned this weekend, but the most important of these is what it’s like for a major film studio to open a film with much of its cast, especially the lead actor, unavailable to the press. That’s the big looming question on everyone’s lips after Ezra Miller’s 2020-2022 tabloid regarding Warner Bros. DC’s $200 million The Flash, which doesn’t look good with a three-day run $60M, less than the $70 to $75 million the studio was expecting. The studio is still counting on the Juneteenth holidays and the film being finished $70M over 4 days (if that’s the case, this is the first time that the federal holiday that hasn’t yet proven to be a big movie day has brought in more than $10 million in daily sales for a film; last year Jurassic Universal’s World: Dominion earned just $8.6 million on the holiday of June 19. The picture grossed $24.5 million yesterday (including Thursday’s previews).Other studios see those numbers lower.Given the projections From last night’s $9.7 million, it initially looked like Flash had the potential to trump and beat its weekend estimates, and that now seems less likely Had the film gone straight to Warners Streaming service Max? Absolutely not. You need to make as much money as possible, and do it through windows.
Given SAG-AFTRA strike authorization, should talks go awry and actors in such situations not being allowed to do press work, perhaps the studios, streamers, etc. should think twice before playing notoriously hard because that’s what happens if your cast is unable Not available to promote a major film. San Diego Comic-Con is already facing TV series unavailability. Warners didn’t rely on Miller for The Flash’s press tour, as the star’s first Hollywood appearance following legal troubles at Monday night’s The Flash premiere was limited to a red carpet photo op (no video or press interviews except a few bloggers), but much of the cast wasn’t available for the 360 press, we’re told.
Note that the darkness of late-night shows during the WGA strike also aggravated Warner’s suffering here. While Keaton was showing up for Q&A screenings in London and Paris and promoting the film on social media, he was busy shooting Beetlejuice 2 for Warner Bros. Sasha Calle, who plays Supergirl, was pushing in Miami and Texas. Where was Ben Affleck? Late night TV makes for fun, not to mention a controlled environment for talent to avoid all sensitive conversations. The reason many didn’t sit down with much of the press is because they didn’t have to face awkward questions about the film’s lead actor, Miller. The Flash also didn’t have an $80-$100 million advertising partner campaign like most of these tentpoles do (although they did have some partners, e.g. Puma with their Flash sneakers), what for the breakthrough is essential the noise of summer and the opening of a cinema for big numbers.
But there’s something else going on with The Flash, which co-DC boss James Gunn called “probably one of the greatest superhero movies of all time” back in January, and that’s moviegoers disagreeing with him give an opinion B Cinema Score And 77% On Comscore/Screen Engine, PostTrak finishes with a 59% recommendation. That enthusiasm, coupled with the fact that The Flash is very male-centric and doesn’t attract as many women as Aquaman and Wonder Woman, slows the film down.
What about all the multi-universe stuff and the return of Michael Keaton’s Batman? Ultimately, for the average Joe moviegoer, The Flash is a film about a DC character from a deeper universe, and that is The Flash. Going deep into the universe with a superhero film risks releasing less than $100 million in openings and yes, franchises have to start somewhere e.g. B. Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger ($65 million) and Thor ($65.7 million). Aquaman may have grossed $67.8 million in three days, but it was released on a Christmas holiday and previews started at $105.4 million over five days and an A- CinemaScore. However, you’ll notice as the weekend begins that Warner Bros. DC hasn’t announced Flash 2 starring filmmaker Andy Muschietti, but rather announced that it’s launching Gunn and co-DC boss Peter Safran’s new Batman, Brave and the Bold “ will stage.
Look, no studio envies Warners for the position Warners took with The Flash, and competitors and marketing peers are hailing the Burbank, California company for running the best possible campaign with fun trailers pretending the film resold mainly through his superhero The Flash Return of Michael Keaton’s Batman. No one blames Warners for tying their shoes together and falling here. To break the news, Warners spent heavily on trailers. iSpot, which monitors what studios spend on US TV spots (and again, this is just one aspect of The Flash’s overall marketing campaign spend), reveals that Warners spends $31.3 million on spots for the Miller film, which garnered 1.07 billion views. That’s more in iSpot metrics than what Disney spent on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ($24.3 million) and Elemental ($12.9 million), more than Paramount spent on Transformers: Rise of the Beasts ($17.2 million) and three times more than Sony on Spider -Man: Across the Spider-Verse ($10.9 million). . Top broadcasters for Flash spots by impression were ABC, ESPN, TNT, Fox and NBC, while top broadcasts for DC movie spots NBA Games, SportsCenter, NFL (remember Warners pulled out a Super Bowl spot) , Men’s College Basketball and Today were show.
Other insights from this weekend:
As expected, not only Flash, but also Disney/Pixar Elementary There was neither fire nor glamorous ice cream with an estimate $30M 3 days after a Friday around 11.6 million US dollars. 4 days could be $33 million. After the bad reviews in Cannes, we always knew that this Pixar film about denizens of a world of fire and ice would not inspire. It was hard to convince kids and families of the whole concept, but even more so the film feels like a watered down version of the spirited existential stuff we saw from the Emeryville, Calif. studio with Inside Out and Soul . No matter the age, no matter the age. They knew it was going to be bad when we heard about all the layoffs. Who would have thought we would live in a time when Illumination would trump Pixar in gross revenue? Pixar and Disney Animation are indeed trying to fill the creative gap left by John Lasseter’s departure.
The four-day box office with all these holdovers like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (also potentially $30M 3 days on weekends 3, $33 million 4 days to knock Elemental out of second place) fuels a nearly $200 million weekend. That’s something for the show business to be happy about with all of these products on the market, despite the lower starts for Flash and Elemental.
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