The Flash | June 16 2023 | Ezra Miller, Michael Keaton | We’re stoping the count at a Nice 69% RT (it’s 72% For Real) | Please Remember that Your Enjoyment Of The Film is Not Based On Others Opinions And To Be Nice To Each Other

[JWR]

Just now, John Marston said:

Ezra Miller absolutely is a factor.  In addition to the legal controversies (which more people probably know about than people want to admit. It was reported in major media outlets and things spread faster and wider thanks to social media) Ezra simply does not have the looks or charisma of a leading man. May be harsh but it is true

 

Doesn't help that the character's last appearance was as a sidekick in a poorly received team up movie.

[Gavin Feng]

1 hour ago, Ohana said:

Is it true? last time I saw It was 70k behind The Batman

 

meaningless cuz Batman was in COVID and only made $20M lifetime.

[ZattMurdock]

1 minute ago, JWR said:

 

Doesn't help that the character's last appearance was as a sidekick in a poorly received team up movie.

I mean, technically Flash’s last appearance was on 

Spoiler

Peacemaker’s last episode

 but otherwise I agree.

[GambitPool]

They should've cast Tom Cruise as the Flash. Already has the running part down. 

[El Gato]

Man, DC’s reboot is about to bomb hard in 2025! The might want to reconsider a shared universe and just do individual character driven films for the main draws. 
 

As for The Flash, it’s going to be brutal online this weekend! This film is going to be torn apart if it doesn’t get 100M opening weekend! At least have a 9 or 8 in front because a 6 or a 7 is just horrendous! I’m seeing it on Sunday, so hopefully it’s a good film… though I doubt they’ll announce getting rid of Ezra anytime soon (they’ll wait until The Flash has finished its run). 
 

Please Blue Beetle, be drama free! 

[ZattMurdock]

1 minute ago, El Gato said:

Man, DC’s reboot is about to bomb hard in 2025! The might want to reconsider a shared universe and just do individual character driven films for the main draws. 
 

As for The Flash, it’s going to be brutal online this weekend! This film is going to be torn apart if it doesn’t get 100M opening weekend! At least have a 9 or 8 in front because a 6 or a 7 is just horrendous! I’m seeing it on Sunday, so hopefully it’s a good film… though I doubt they’ll announce getting rid of Ezra anytime soon (they’ll wait until The Flash has finished its run). 
 

Please Blue Beetle, be drama free! 

Nah, James Gunn got this. Superman Legacy is one of my most anticipated films not in active production right now. What they need is someone that understands, loves and can plan ahead. They got one of the best in the business right now, James Gunn will knock Superman Legacy out of the park, I am very confident on that.

[PlatnumRoyce]

38 minutes ago, excel1 said:

 

I don't think your average person knows or cares. Not to be insensitive, but it is what it is. Look into the backgrounds of many of the worlds current most popular musicians and actors etc. Every day people just don't care.  

The premise of all of this is that the average person doesn't really know very much specifically about the flash film or Miller beyond that which the 100M+ marketing campaign is pushing in front of their faces.

I think this argument fails because you're arguing the aforementioned nine figure marketing campaign should push "The Flash 2 is happening" as one of the film's core marketing pitches and that provides an organic entry point for all of Ezra Miller's scandals to be relitigated and to spotlight Miller's absence. If people read a headline about Flash 2, there's a 20%(?) chance they'll hear about all of the ugly stuff Miller is accused of and if they read an article about it, there's a 90% chance they'll hear about it. I just can't imagine the net effect of that is to increase interest in buying a ticket. The default is apathy and this marketing campaign alteration needs to "get people off of the sidelines." 

If you're telling people that this is the start of a decade of films staring Ezra Miller, the salience of digging into those stories just goes way up and even if you're right that the public doesn't care a lot about this, I imagine Zaslov, Gunn, etc. don't  want a few waves of stories about abusive behavior, restraining orders, etc. 

West Side Story is a perfect example of this: the film was literally unable to run with a "romeo and juliet" marketing pitch and poor tracking didn't make them revisit that decision (presumably helped by having Spielberg as a juicy interview option). Similarly WB literally paid Depp twenty to thirty million dollars to avoid negative PR of being associated with him following UK defamation case result. That's a credible signal. On the other hand, Depp-Heard trial got genuine mainstream news coverage and Depp remains an A list movie star in "interest/awareness" polls (if not in box office results). 

 

 

Quote

very popular celebrities are often bad people and people don't care. 

 

Sure...but that's because people already like these people for their music/athletic performance. Ezra Miller isn't already a movie star. There's not really a strong reason to assume Miller as a brand can sell anything. 

And at some intersection of preexisting popularity and severity of crime, people start to care and/or people don't get jobs. Kobe Bryant survived a rape case but Luke Heimlich never got a professional contract.  

[XXR & Friends]

2 minutes ago, El Gato said:

Man, DC’s reboot is about to bomb hard in 2025! The might want to reconsider a shared universe and just do individual character driven films for the main draws. 

 

I see no reason to doom and gloom the reboot at this point. Gunn has shown his film making prowess so I'm not concerned with Superman Legacy and he seems to be building out the rest of the universe properly.

 

Let's wait and see what happens before declaring it dead....

[RichWS]

10 minutes ago, JWR said:

Doesn't help that the character's last appearance was as a sidekick in a poorly received team up movie.

 

I feel this is the biggest hurdle. Why should the public be excited for a movie with a character/actor combo that was last seen six years ago in a movie nobody liked? There's ZERO build-up here. 

[excel1]

Is it too late to slide in a deleted Joker scene from Batman 1989 and announce that Nicholson cameos here?

[emoviefan]

2 minutes ago, El Gato said:

Man, DC’s reboot is about to bomb hard in 2025! The might want to reconsider a shared universe and just do individual character driven films for the main draws. 
 

As for The Flash, it’s going to be brutal online this weekend! This film is going to be torn apart if it doesn’t get 100M opening weekend! At least have a 9 or 8 in front because a 6 or a 7 is just horrendous! I’m seeing it on Sunday, so hopefully it’s a good film… though I doubt they’ll announce getting rid of Ezra anytime soon (they’ll wait until The Flash has finished its run). 
 

Please Blue Beetle, be drama free! 

Why would the reboot bomb hard because the leftover product is bombing or underperforming? People aren't going to ignore Superman Legacy because of the Flash underperforming and shazam FOG bombing. 

[JWR]

1 minute ago, RichWS said:

 

I feel this is the biggest hurdle. Why should the public be excited for a movie with a character/actor combo that was last seen six years ago in a movie nobody liked? There's ZERO build-up here. 

 

It feels like any momentum has long since deflated in between this and Justice League. 

[21C]

10 minutes ago, El Gato said:

Man, DC’s reboot is about to bomb hard in 2025! The might want to reconsider a shared universe and just do individual character driven films for the main draws. 

As long as Superman: Legacy looks like a great film, there's no reason GA would look at it any different by the time it releases than how they looked at The Batman. Most people will just look at it as a Superman film, not part of a connected universe because there is no universe for it to connect to yet. Like The Batman, it's not carrying any previous baggage.

Edited June 13, 2023 by 21C

[emoviefan]

6 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

Nah, James Gunn got this. Superman Legacy is one of my most anticipated films not in active production right now. What they need is someone that understands, loves and can plan ahead. They got one of the best in the business right now, James Gunn will knock Superman Legacy out of the park, I am very confident on that.

Exactly. Right there with you.  

[vinny2487]

11 minutes ago, El Gato said:

Man, DC’s reboot is about to bomb hard in 2025! The might want to reconsider a shared universe and just do individual character driven films for the main draws. 
 

As for The Flash, it’s going to be brutal online this weekend! This film is going to be torn apart if it doesn’t get 100M opening weekend! At least have a 9 or 8 in front because a 6 or a 7 is just horrendous! I’m seeing it on Sunday, so hopefully it’s a good film… though I doubt they’ll announce getting rid of Ezra anytime soon (they’ll wait until The Flash has finished its run). 
 

Please Blue Beetle, be drama free! 

 

What? If The Flash disappoints it makes rebooting DC that much easier. How does The Flash being a disappointment imperil the new DCU under Gunn? There's a reason why they're rebooting and it's to get rid of the baggage from the DCEU. 

[ZattMurdock]

22 minutes ago, excel1 said:

Is it too late to slide in a deleted Joker scene from Batman 1989 and announce that Nicholson cameos here?

Yeah I think this is one of the lying issues with Flash compared with Spider-Man: No Way Home or even Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse:

 

Quote

Shannon stars alongside Ezra Miller in the multiverse movie that also sees the return of Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton’s Batmans, and Sasha Calle portraying Supergirl. 

“I’m not gonna lie, it wasn’t quite satisfying for me, as an actor,” Shannon told Collider of reprising the role. “These multiverse movies are like somebody playing with action figures. It’s like, ‘Here’s this person. Here’s that person. And they’re fighting!'”
 

He continued, “It’s not quite the in-depth character study situation that I honestly felt Man of Steel was. Whether people think that’s crazy or not, I don’t even care. I really felt like Man of Steel was actually a pretty sophisticated story. I feel like The Flash is too, but it’s not Zod’s story. I’m basically there to present a challenge.”

 

Ideally, that’s just not how you do it. I think No Way Home succeeded on giving meaningful character arcs even for the villains, let alone the 3 Spider-Men. And that wasn’t achieved by Spider-Man: No Way Home itself, but the history of all those characters interweaved and how they culminated on that film. That’s a luxury that The Flash doesn’t have, no matter how much cameos you throw at this.

Edited June 13, 2023 by ZattMurdock

[WittyUsername]

I’m not convinced the Ezra Miller situation is playing a significant role in any lack of interest here. Shazam 2 didn’t have to deal with that, and it still bombed horribly. The DCEU in general has been struggling to maintain audience interest since 2020, and the fact that they all but announced that the movies coming out this year don’t matter because of an impending reboot couldn’t have helped. It’s the Dark Phoenix effect. 

[AJG]

Are they paying people to turn up to this thing?

 

 

[ZattMurdock]

Oh no.

[vinny2487]

3 minutes ago, WittyUsername said:

I’m not convinced the Ezra Miller situation is playing a significant role in any lack of interest here. Shazam 2 didn’t have to deal with that, and it still bombed horribly. The DCEU in general has been struggling to maintain audience interest since 2020, and the fact that they all but announced that the movies coming out this year don’t matter because of an impending reboot couldn’t have helped. It’s the Dark Phoenix effect. 

There may be some truth to the "dead universe" hurting the upcoming DC movies. Could WB have done things differently in announcing a reboot? Maybe but I don't think they had much choice. The new Superman movie was going to be leaked regardless, there's no way to keep a lid on one of the hottest castings in Hollywood.