‘The Flash’ Takes $9.7 Million at Thursday Box Office

“The Flash” got off to a slow start in its domestic box office sprint, earning $9.7 million in Thursday previews. That’s barely more than the $8.9 million earned by “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” last weekend and only a bit more than the $7.5 million and $7.6 million earned by “Black Adam” and “Fast X” respectively in their Thursday preview runs.

Ten years ago, “Man of Steel” kicked off what would become the DC Films universe with a $56 million Friday (including previews) and $128 million over its Fri-Sun launch.” “The Flash” may struggle to earn as much over its opening weekend as Zack Snyder’s Superman reboot earned on its opening day. If it legs over the weekend like “The Batman” ($133 million from a $22 million Thursday), “The Flash” will earn $59 million by Sunday night.

If “The Flash” legs out over the weekend like “Wonder Woman” ($103 million/$11 million), it’ll end Sunday night with $91 million, but the Gal Gaot actioner had rave reviews, decades of pent-up demand and sky-high word-of-mouth that turned it into an event. With all due respect, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” already claimed the “buzzy watercooler smash of June” title.

Weekend legs like “Justice League” ($93 million/$13 million), “Man of Steel” ($128 million/$21 million), “Suicide Squad” ($133 million/$20 million) or “Batman v Superman” ($166 million/$28 million) will give “The Flash” between $57 million and $69 million for the weekend. Conversely, legs like “Black Adam” ($67 million/$7.5 million) and “Fast X” ($67 million/$7.6 million) would give “The Flash” a rock-solid $87 million launch.

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Ezra Miller is either unknown to general audiences or mostly known for real-life transgressions. The notion of Michael Keaton returning as Bruce Wayne to hang out with a Barry Allen whom general audiences barely know isn’t nearly as much of a big deal as three well-known versions of Spider-Man meeting up and saving the day together. Besides, Warner Bros. Discovery (understandably) revealed much of the film’s Batman and Supergirl content in the marketing, while Sony was able to keep footage of Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire out of the “Spider-Man: No Way Home” marketing.

Fair or not, “The Flash” arrived following years of back-and-forth DC discourse concerning Joss Whedon replacing Zack Snyder for the theatrical cut of “Justice League,” the so-called SnyderVerse being shuttled and then, via the Snyder Cut of “Justice League” temporarily resurrected, HBO Max potentially undercutting “Wonder Woman 1984” and “The Suicide Squad” via “Project Popcorn,” changing leadership from AT&T to Discovery, “Batgirl” getting shelved, Dwayne Johnson’s attempts at a Black Adam-centric DC continuity and a full-on DC Studios relaunch is essentially an admission that the last decade’s attempts to build a rival to Disney’s MCU were something of a wash.

With good but not superlative reviews (67% and 6.3/10 on Rotten Tomatoes), especially compared to the sky-high buzz coming out of CinemaCon, “The Flash” now finds itself as just another franchise tentpole of the week. Despite years of discourse, controversy and huzzahs, the success or failure of “The Flash” will come down to whether general audiences care about the mere idea of a movie based on Barry Allen/TheFlash.

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That’s not even getting into “The Flash” arriving in theaters after nine years of CW’s “The Flash” television series running its course and now on the heels of other mega-hit and comparatively acclaimed multiverse flicks like “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” Things that might have made “The Flash” unique unto itself even a few years ago now render it merely one among many.

We’ll see how this plays out. But if the math doesn’t improve over the weekend (Thursday-to-weekend legs like “Aquaman” gets it to $77 million) and beyond — next week is comparatively quiet — “The Flash” may have ironically arrived in theaters too late to save the day.

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