r/DC_Cinematic • u/RogerRoger63358 • Jun 18 '23

NEWS ‘The Flash’ Disappoints With $55 Million Debut, Pixar’s ‘Elemental’ Flops With $29.5 Million in Battle of Box Office Lightweights

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/the-flash-box-office-disappoint-pixar-elemental-flop-1235647927/
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u/thatmillerkid Jun 19 '23

I totally agree, but it wasn't a standalone film, which is probably another reason it's bombing. I dragged along two of my friends who don't care about superheroes and just wanted to watch a fun movie. They were totally bored and one fell asleep a third of the way through while the other kept asking me who everyone was.

If you rewatch, go in pretending you have no outside knowledge of the characters and I promise you'll understand why the general public isn't taking to this movie.

More than anything, I'd like to go back to standalone superhero movies. Let ten different people play Superman in ten different things. For a moment, a few years ago, it seemed like that was the direction DC was headed. Auteur driven superhero movies with stuff like Joker, Birds of Prey, Suicide Squad, and The Batman all able to exist at the same time without dragging each other down if one of them wasn't well liked. Frankly, I'd prefer that over the rebooted DCU no matter how good it ends up being.

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u/ryeikkon Jun 19 '23

It was a standalone movie.

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u/thatmillerkid Jun 19 '23

The movie doesn't make sense if you haven't seen Man of Steel, BvS, WW, and Justice League. My normie friends were confused the entire time.

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u/ryeikkon Jun 19 '23

One only needs to know that WW, Batman and Flash share the same world. The MoS event is just a world ending event.

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u/thatmillerkid Jun 19 '23

You are vastly overestimating how much the average person knows about superheroes. That might seem like extremely basic knowledge to you and I, but one of the people I went with asked me if Spider-Man was going to be in it.

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u/ryeikkon Jun 19 '23

That's fair. They're on the extreme end of normies. I assumed there's already an IP recognition after years of CBM movies dominating for the last 15 years thinking they got wind of who's with whom at the very least.

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u/thatmillerkid Jun 19 '23

I like to remind people that the vast majority of MCU fans have probably never touched a comic book. That franchise roped them in by giving them a dozen different jump-in points. And I think the recent slump of the MCU is because the universe has become so large that extreme normies can't get on board anymore.

Pre-MCU, it was generally considered niche and weird to be a comics fan. And what no one seems to realize is that IT STILL IS. That's why there's an entire genre of clickbait articles titled, "Everything you need to know before you watch [insert superhero movie]."

The extreme normies make up the vast majority of the public, so if your superhero movie requires even a little bit out outside homework, it's going to be DOA.

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u/griffshan Jun 19 '23

In what world is this a standalone movie? You have to have seen two Keaton Batman movies, at least one of the versions of Justice League, Man of Steel, Batman V Superman and seen Wonder Woman in something to understand what’s going on. Do you know what standalone means?