Box Office: Ezra Miller’s ‘The Flash,’ Pixar’s ‘Elemental’ Get Iced by Moviegoers

Argh.

Such was the refrain across Hollywood as opening weekend estimates circulated for DC’s highly anticipated The Flash and Pixar’s Elemental, which are debuting domestically over the long Juneteenth holiday weekend. (As well as Father’s Day on Sunday.)

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Starring Ezra Miller in the titular role, Warner Bros. and DC’s The Flash is anything but flashy in the opinion of moviegoers. The film earned an estimated $55.7 million for the three days and projected $64.2 million for the four days, notably behind expectations. Final numbers will be tallied Tuesday.

The hope had been for The Flash to get a three-day start of at least $70 million so as to come in ahead of such disappointing DC titles as Black Adam, which collected $67 million in its first three days.

Overseas, the superhero tentpole also faced challenges. It opened to $72 million from 79 markets, including a dismal $13.8 million in China, for a global opening north of $130 million through Sunday.

The studio’s leadership has been hyping The Flash for months, with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav proclaiming it is the greatest superhero movie he’s ever seen. Many critics don’t agree with the assessment; the pic currently has a 67 percent Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes. A bigger problem: Audiences gave the movie a mediocre B CinemaScore (as a way of comparison, Elemental received an A).

While superhero fare often skews heavily male, The Flash is even more so than usual, at 70 percent.

Box office pundits are divided as to whether Miller’s offscreen woes are impacting the film’s performance. Miller was arrested multiple times in 2022 and was the subject of several controversies, culminating in the actor issuing a statement in August of last year apologizing for their behavior and saying they would receive help for “complex mental health issues.” Miller walked the red carpet at the movie’s premiere but has otherwise been absent from doing publicity for The Flash.

In the Andy Muschietti-directed film, Miller stars in dual roles as alternate-timeline versions of heroic speedster Barry Allen, with Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck making splashy returns in their respective Batman roles (in Keaton’s case, it’s a character he hasn’t played since 1991). Sasha Calle stars as Supergirl, while Michael Shannon reprises his role as General Zod from the 2013 feature Man of Steel. (And there was another secret cameo.)

DC was counting heavily on The Flash to improve its standing after the tepid showing of Shazam! Fury of the Gods and Black Adam.

Ditto for Pixar, which has Elemental opening this weekend. But the family film quickly fell flat at the box office in the latest blow for the storied animation studio. Many pundits worry that original animated IP is no longer a theatrical proposition. Also, the former regime at Disney sent several Pixar movies straight to streaming during the pandemic, possibly changing consumer habits.

Elemental earned an estimated $29.6 million for the three-day weekend, the lowest wide weekend debut ever for a Pixar title outside of Toy Story, which started off with $29.1 million nearly three decades ago, not adjusted for inflation. (Toy Story, of course, went on to make cinematic and box office history. Elemental isn’t expected to do the same.) Elemental’s four-day holiday gross is an estimated $33.4 million.

Overseas, Elemental earned $17 million from its first 17 markets, including beating The Flash in South Korea with $3.2 million. The movie stumbled in China, however, with $5.2 million. (The only other major market was Australia.)

The hope now is that Elemental will parlay its A CinemaScore into long legs at the box office.

Directed by Peter Sohn (The Good Dinosaur), Elemental is set in Element City, where fire, water, land and air residents live together. The film’s themes include connection, celebrating differences and finding one’s place in the world.

The story follows Ember (Leah Lewis), a tough, quick-witted and fiery young woman, whose friendship with a sappy, go-with-the-flow guy named Wade (Mamoudou Athie) challenges her beliefs about the world they live in, where “elements don’t mix.”

Competition from Sony holdover Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is another issue for The Flash, as well as for Elemental.

Now in its third weekend, the animated Spidey film earned a hearty $27.8 million for the three-day weekend and an estimated $32.4 million for the four days for a domestic total of $285 million through Monday. Globally, it soared to nearly $490 million through Sunday as it approaches the $500 million mark.

Paramount and Skydance’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is another Flash competitor. The pic, coming in at No. 4 domestically, grossed $20 million for the three days and a projected $23 million for the four days. Overseas, it pulled in another $23 million for a global total north of $170 million.

Tim Story’s The Blackening, about a group of Black friends who decided to spend the holiday weekend at a remote cabin only to find themselves trapped with a twisted killer, debuted to an estimated $6 million. The film rounded out the top five.

Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City made headlines at the specialty box office in the U.S., where it launched in six theaters in New York and Los Angeles before expanding nationwide next weekend. The Focus Features project posted a three-day, per-theater location average of $132,211 — the best showing since La La Land in 2016 ($176,000).

Furthermore, the Anderson pic was the top-grossing title at the AMC Century City in Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday despite competition from the likes of The Flash.

June 18, 7:30 a.m.: Updated with revised estimates.
June 18, 10 a.m.: Updated with additional foreign estimates.
June 19, 8:30 a.m.: Updated with revised estimates.

This story was originally published June 17 at 8:41 a.m.

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