Products You May Like
EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros./DC’s The Flash per box office sources is playing like a deeper universe superhero movie with around $9M in Thursday night previews which began at 3PM. While the pic’s critical score on Rotten Tomatoes has fallen to 67% fresh from 71% fresh, audiences are enjoying it more at 88%. That’s a good sign.
Already tonight, Warner Bros is celebrating before Flash‘s final Monday grosses: DC co-chief James Gunn and Peter Safran christened Flash director Andy Muschietti the official helmer of their future Batman reboot, The Brave and the Bold, while Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group and Television inked a multi-year pact with the Argentinian filmmaker and his sister producer Barbara Muschietti.
Flash‘s Thursday is in the vicinity of such preview nights as Sony/Marvel’s Venom ($10M), Marvel’s Doctor Strange ($9.4M), DC’s Aquaman ($9M excluding paid sneaks), yet above Marvel’s Ant-Man ($6.4M).
Wonder Woman did $11M on her Thursday night. But remember that was a long-awaited big DC superhero that female moviegoers were craving for, not to mention it had the big media wattage of Gal Gadot who was everywhere. Flash is in a very different situation: its star Ezra Miller literally just made his big PR debut for the film on Monday, four days before opening, at the Hollywood premiere; the actor kept largely out of the $200M pic’s promo machine given his tabloid history over the last year-plus. Also The Flash cast hasn’t been able to make a splash on late night TV since those shows are dark due to the WGA Strike.
The weekend outlook for Flash is between $70M-$75M, however, if it emulates the gross patterns of Doctor Strange and Venom, with tonight repping around 30% of its complete Friday+previews, then the Muschiettis’ DC superhero movie could find its way into the $80M+ neighborhood; Venom opened to $80.2M in U.S./Canada while Doctor Strange did $85M.
Both Wonder Woman and Aquaman are slightly different superpowered beings when it comes to their box office comps. Though tracking had Wonder Woman, which opened during the first weekend of June 2017, between $65M-75M (93% RT crtics, 83% audiences), it lassoed big buzz immediately and overpowered to a $103.2M start.
Aquaman played over a Christmas stretch at the end of 2018. While it posted a $9M pure Thursday in previews, the pic had an additional $4.7M added to its weekend from paid sneaks for a pure $67.8M 3-day, $72.5M running total before Christmas Eve Monday and Christmas Day Tuesday pushed it to a very good $105.4M 5-day+ previews start. Aquaman was 65% with critics, and 72% with audiences but ultimately finaled at $335M in U.S./Canada, a 4.6x multiple off that $72.5M number (it was Christmas, and Jason Momoa brought in the women).
Now we have a majority of schools and people off from work on Monday, Juneteenth (June 19). So what can that bring to The Flash? Since it’s a new holiday, we have yet to see some major moviegoing action; last year’s top Juneteenth films (which were technically on June 20) — Jurassic World: Dominion, Lightyear and Top Gun: Maverick saw single digit takes between $6.5M-$8.6M, averaging a -55% dip from their Sunday gross.
Disney/Pixar’s Elemental started previews at 3PM tonight and box office sources peg that pic’s Thursday night at around $3.5M (Lightyear, considered a misfire for Pixar, did $5.2M in previews before a 3-day of $50.5M). While Flash has Imax, Elemental has 2,400 3D locations, 275 PLF auditoriums and 140 4D/D-Box screens imbedded in its 4,000 theater booking. Low projections on the film, which audiences like more than critics on Rotten Tomatoes, 88% to 76%, are at $35M, though it wouldn’t be shocking if the Peter Sohn directed title gets into the $40M range.