Despite a ton of hype, and far better overall audience and critic scores than its predecessor, Warner Bros.’ The Flash has ended its box office run in the States making less money than the studio’s infamous Green Lantern.
That’s saying something, considering the 2011 movie is so bad that Ryan Reynolds‘ Deadpool went back in time just to murder Reynolds so that he could never make the movie.
With a production budget said to be in the neighborhood of $200 million — plus more than half that added for marketing — the Ezra Miller-led Flash is heading out of theaters in the U.S. after having grossed a little over $106 million. Green Lantern ended its run with $116 million domestically.
The Flash‘s overseas performance did manage to top that of Lantern‘s, bringing its total take to more than $263 million versus Green Lantern‘s more than $219 million.
That wasn’t exactly a photo finish for the Scarlet Speedster: the movie turned out to be a bigger financial misfire than 2022’s Black Adam. After making $393 million, according to Box Office Mojo, Black Adam was still considered a disappointment for Warner Bros.
While The Flash was made before James Gunn and Peter Safran‘s tenure as the heads of DC Films began, Gunn and others touted it as one of the best superhero films ever made.
While the Audience Score on the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes is a respectable 83%, there apparently just wasn’t enough audience there for The Flash to be anything but a financial disaster.
Before Gunn and Safran’s vision for DC Films officially takes flight with 2025’s Superman: Legacy, Warner Bros. will release its final two pre-Gunn comic book movies: Blue Beetle on August 18 and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom on December 20.
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