The Flash flopped...but does that mean that the new DCU is doomed to fail? In this video we talk about the diminishing box office returns of the DCEU, and how the failure of the Flash put a studio in crisis. Can James Gunn write the ship by starting fresh, or does he need the Zack Snyder fanbase to succeed?

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Written and Hosted by Ryan Arey (  / ryanarey  )
Edited by Harriet Lengel-Enright, Randolf Nombrado, Sofien Dami, and Brianna McLarty
Featuring:
Colton Ogburn (  / coltonogburn  )
Joanna Robinson:   / jowrotethis  

#Flash #Flop #DCU

I’m going to run through all the reasons that the DC universe is in big trouble, and later I’m going to ask two experts, our own Colton Ogburn and Joanna Robinson, podcaster at the Ringer and author of the upcoming reign of marvel studios.

But first, here’s my take. Like I said, I expected the flash to do really well. One of our writers, Colton Ogburn, saw the movie at cinema con, loved it. James Gunn said it was one of his favorite superhero movies. Tom Cruise liked it–but mostly, I thought it had to be special because Warner Brothers could have easily canceled it and saved a ton of money.

So long story short–recently, Warner Brothers merged with Discovery, and they began a purge of content to save money. Westworld was canceled, then removed from HBO max. Then they opted to not release batgirl–a movie they had finished filming which also featured michael keaton as batman.

Doug: why did they cancel batgirl?

Because if the movie was never released, then they could claim it as a tax write off. And they could have done the same thing with the flash. Saved money on visual effects, etc. the studio also had to contend with a star who was on a crime spree accessing the United States, Ezra miller. Now maybe they find;they cancel the film because the actors owed portions of the gross or something-I dunno. But the studio seemed to have full faith in the movie.

And the super bowl trailer was so good, our breakdown got so many views–thanks for watching, by the way–and it seems like this movie was going to give Keaton batman fans and snyder fans a reason to come together. Fans of old DC and Snyder DC would come together, and celebrate a new beginning. And we planned out so many videos, did breakdowns, explained time travel…and the video that gave us the most views was the one about why it flopped. This movie did not connect with audiences, and I want to figure out why, to see if there’s any way Warner Brothers can course correct.

So, to get a metric for how these films are performing, we’re going to talk about box office performance. I want to note that in no way does the Box office have anything to do with the quality of a film. The majority of great films don;t make a lot of money, and terrible films make money all the time [michael bay photo]. But because we’re talking about the financial success and fan reception of movies, we gotta talk about the benjamins.

Doug: dollar, dollar, bill y’all.

So, in 2012 the dark knight trilogy ended, massive financial successes, grossing a combined total of more than a billion dollars.

And then, Man of Steel was released in 2013, and it grossed 668 million worldwide–even more than The Dark Knight rises. Warner brothers was excited because they were starting their own interconnected universe, and they wanted that sweet avengers money. Batman v Superman made 870 million.

Suicie squad, 746 million. Wonder Woman made 817 million. So clearly, fans were buying what DC was selling. All of these films had a darker, grittier tone than the marvel movies. They imitated the artistic style of Zack Snyder, who I think it's fair to say was the architect of this universe. Having directed man of steel and batman v superman. The lesson seems to be that DC fans liked dark DC movies, like the Nolan films–Christopher Nolan was even a producer on Man of Steel, linking these two franchises.

Now, fans like me did not like those movies as much. I thought the tone departed too far from the comics, and that Snyder’s superman was an insult to my favorite comic book hero. And I wasn;t alone. There was a huge backlash against these massively successful films.

So, when Snyder left the justice league because of a family tragedy, the studio hired Joss Whedon to drastically remake the movie and marve-ize it. And you can see a very clear downward trend from here.