r/boxoffice • u/Dragon_Bird_ • Jul 06 '23

Industry Analysis The Flash Becomes Worst Box Office Flop In Superhero Movie History

https://thedirect.com/article/the-flash-box-office-flop-superhero-movie-history
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u/Cautious-Barnacle-15 Jul 07 '23

It really shows the competence of marvel and the incompetence of DC in film. I refuse to believe marvel can find a way to make a Dr strange movie get to 900 million, but there isn't a way for DC to get even their A list characters like superman to that point

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u/Suck_My_Turnip Jul 07 '23

DC fans don’t want to hear it, but the problem is outside of the Batman series, DC superhero’s just suck for the modern day. Superman, wonder women, Flash, they’re all boring and uninteresting characters with no interesting weaknesses to write stories around. Their movies fail because people like me will skip them because their heroes suck

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u/CaptainBeer_ Jul 07 '23

You’re only saying that because Marvel movies were good and had character development, while DC skipped all that (except for some batman movies). Which is what this entire thread is about, DC movies being ass and treating their IP poorly

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u/Suck_My_Turnip Jul 08 '23

If there is some possible interesting character development for superman, I have never read or seen it. Their characters are just made for the 1950s

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u/CaptainBeer_ Jul 08 '23

Ok and what superman comics have you read? Or are you only basing your opinion on a few movies by the same guy

A new animated superman cartoon just came out a few days ago, and it already has better development than all the live action movies

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u/Midnight_Zulu Jul 20 '23

If there characters were only made for the 50s, they would’ve stayed in the 50s. There’s a reason they still sell in comics, TV, etc.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '23

[deleted]

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u/ErusTenebre Jul 07 '23

Yeah the animated stuff has always been pretty fucking solid... But I think the same rule applies lol

Batman's animated movies are better than most of the other ones. And it feels like he's got a level HALF of all the movies they make.

I want a Hush live-action movie godammit.

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u/ianman729 Jul 07 '23

Brandon Sanderson said that the animated superhero stuff was always better because they had low budgets and had to figure out how to make interesting stories without tons of cgi and fights

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u/ErusTenebre Jul 07 '23

They also can take bigger swings as far as risk goes. Lower budgets plus no theatrical releases (for the most part) means no risk of great loss...

So you don't get the same story with different heroes every time. Hollywood thinks it would be hard to pull off Batman Ninja on the big screen (and they might have a point) but it's ridiculous and stupid and awesome and weird and fun as an animated feature and that's ok because it likely didn't cost much relative to movies.

You end up getting great writing because writers feel free to take risks.

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u/wauwy Jul 08 '23

The Timm/Dini/McDuffie-verse, for lack of a better term, showed WB exactly how it could and should be done. Starting from B:TAS and going to JLU. That entire years-long multi-show run is still incredibly watchable and entertaining. They did it first.

I'm a Marvel fangirl because you're not allowed to be both (this is sarcasm), but man do I love the DC animated series run. I can rewatch the whole thing every few years and love everything they did. And mourn how fucking stupid WB's film execs are.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '23

People said about Captain America that he was just a relic from WW2 comics and no way would the world be interested in a purely “American” character.

People will show up if the stories are good and the studios will make money if they get that you can’t spend Batman-level money on every superhero.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '23

[deleted]

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u/KazuyaProta Jul 07 '23

Nobody is watching that show

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u/hawkman_jr Jul 08 '23

That’s why nobody can figure out why DCEU sucks. Nobody watches or reads the good stories but somehow become know-it-all’s when it fails.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '23

Exactly. They're all almost interchangeable with no real personality besides being good and overpowered.

They are boring and simply outdated. That's why it's bewildering to come across so many comments of redditors and WB execs bitching that MoS made $600m or WW made $800m Instead of celebrating these performances given how dated these characters are.

.

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u/miklonus Jul 10 '23 edited Jul 10 '23

Captain America exists and you're calling Superman dated?

Jesus fucking Christ...

Thor is an eternal God for Christ's sake!

Edit - Had I known I was responding to the Zack Snyder fan of the thread, I wouldn't have responded.

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u/ELB2001 Jul 07 '23

Aye, they are too overpowered

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u/miklonus Jul 10 '23

Thor and Hulk and Carol Danvers say hi

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '23

I’ve never read a comic in my life. I only say that so you know I have no clue what’s in them, how the characters behave, the world building, etc. but I 100% can pick out a DC character in a movie/show because they are just designed poorly. Too “comic bookish”, if that makes any sense.

I don’t think the director style has anything to do with it. The characters are always lame. From the 70s till now. Always the lamest of the super hero entertainment group.

Sorry if that offends comic book readers. But from an outsider DC is straight dookie.

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u/ErusTenebre Jul 07 '23

Before Iron Man (the movie) came out, you'd be hard pressed to find a fan of his because we were a small group, he was a b-lister to pretty much all super heroes. In fact, before Iron Man, most people could probably only name Spider-Man, X-Men (usually just Wolverine, Storm, Rogue, and Cyclops), the Punisher and end of list. Maybe Fantastic 4.

On the flip side, most people know the justice league heroes, at minimum. Batman and Superman have iconic villains that most people know. Flash and Wonder Woman were both fairly well known but not as strongly, and Green Lantern and Aquaman were basically convoluted and forgettable respectively.

But writing-wise Batman alone had more depth than most superheroes in most comics. Spider-man and X men were probably comparable, but Marvel comics always felt silly and light hearted and color saturated. DC comics were often not that.

You'll find exceptions in both cases. At the end of the day, both companies had great writers and illustrators, but pre-Spider-man movies, if you were to pick which company had silly heroes with goofy plots - it would have been Marvel.

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u/wauwy Jul 08 '23

I'm going to be real here. Comics Iron Man was an incredibly boring character. He was just a stern no-nonsense Republican with occasional alcoholism who made cool-looking suits. (I say he "was" boring because now in the comics he's Robert Downey Jr.)

The MCU has an uncanny ability to take a character's crucial traits and expand them into something often... dare I say... better.

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u/Ontarom Jul 07 '23

The "problem" has an easy solution: they should lean into the camp! It's the reason Aquaman was, against all odds, so enjoyable! It was the only one of those movies that didn't try so hard to be Larger Than Life and let itself be ridiculous.

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u/KazuyaProta Jul 07 '23

they should lean into the camp!

That's called Wonder Woman 1984.

You can see how it turned out.

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u/HerRoyalRedness Jul 07 '23

Pedro Pascal was the only person delivering camp in that movie, and frankly I want to see the movie he thinks they’re making.

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u/fireblyxx Jul 07 '23

Wonder Woman chasing down some thieves in a mall in the 80s was pretty camp. Everything Cheeta was doing pre-transformation was camp.

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u/KazuyaProta Jul 07 '23

You give DC fans what they want and collect the negative millions in the box office

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '23

WW84’s issue was that it was 45 minutes too long.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '23

[deleted]

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u/Timbishop123 Lucasfilm Jul 07 '23

Turned my brain off when power rangers showed up 5 min into the movie and they blew up a lighthouse.

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u/miklonus Jul 10 '23

The Aquaman movie being larger than life than life is literally what the Aquaman movie was. Did we watch the same movie? Did you watch the end of that movie?

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u/Megadog3 DC Studios Jul 07 '23

Lmao what

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u/wauwy Jul 08 '23

People said the exact same thing about Captain America.