Movies 6/16-6/18 Weekend NA Box Office: "The Flash" fizzles, "Elemental" flops

[SaysWho?]

‘The Flash’ Disappoints With $55 Million Debut, Pixar’s ‘Elemental’ Flops With $29.5 Million in Battle of Box Office Lightweights

VARIETY.COM

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Ezra Miller's "The Flash" and Pixar's "Elemental" were disappointments in their respective box office debuts.

 

Flash: 

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In the lead-up to “The Flash,” executives at Warner Bros. worked hard to convince the public that the film is “one of the greatest superhero movies ever made,” per newly minted DC Studios co-chief James Gunn. 

...

But a tepid “B” CinemaScore from opening weekend crowds suggests that the moviegoing masses didn’t entirely agree with the lavish praise bestowed on the film by the people who made it. Without positive audience scores or strong word-of-mouth, “The Flash” will struggle to rebound in the coming weeks, especially as summer season heats up with the release of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” on June 30, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” on July 12 and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” on July 21.

 

Elemental:

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“Elemental,” an animated adventure about opposites who attract, added a muted $15 million at the international box office for a global total of $44.5 million. Unlike “The Flash,” “Elemental” has been embraced by its audience, who awarded the film an “A” CinemaScore. So there’s a chance that ticket sales could recover even slightly in the next few weeks, especially since there isn’t much competition from family films on the horizon.

 

But there’s no sugar-coating the debut of “Elemental,” which landed by far the worst start in modern history for Pixar, ranking below some of its more forgettable attempts like 2015’s “The Good Dinosaur” ($39 million) and 2020’s “Onward” ($39 million). The animation empire behind “Toy Story,” “Up” and “Ratatouille” hasn’t been able to rebound from the pandemic, when several of its titles were sent directly to Disney+ and family audiences were trained to expect those movies at home.

 

[johnny]

i barely saw elemental advertised 

[Derek]

5 minutes ago, johnny said:

i barely saw elemental advertised 

I think the only ads I saw were on youtube, when I would turn it on for the kids, as a little Daddy break.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Tweet incoming from Dwayne Johnson reminding everyone that Black Adam grossed $67 million in its first three days.

[DarkStar189]

I think The Flash looks great but I also feel like the movie is hitting above it's pay grade. Is that the right term?  To bring back Michael Keaton as Batman is amazing!  But then to be marketed and called "The Flash" just doesn't feel good enough.  With that name it sounds like the beginning of an origin story. 

Elemental I didn't even realize was out.

[skillzdadirecta]

3 hours ago, SaysWho? said:

The animation empire behind “Toy Story,” “Up” and “Ratatouille” hasn’t been able to rebound from the pandemic, when several of its titles were sent directly to Disney+ and family audiences were trained to expect those movies at home.

I think this explains some of Elemental's issues.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Neither film is lighting the overseas box office on fire either::

 

‘The Flash’ Stumbles at International Box Office With $75 Million, Pixar’s ‘Elemental’ Crashes With $15 Million Overseas

VARIETY.COM

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"The Flash" and Disney's Pixar adventure "Elemental" failed to catch fire with international audiences.

 

Quote

 

After struggling at the domestic box office, this weekend’s two major releases — the Warner Bros. superhero adaptation “The Flash” and Disney’s Pixar adventure “Elemental” — failed to catch fire with international audiences.

 

“The Flash” pulled in $75 million in its international box office debut, which doesn’t sound all that bad… except when considering the movie is available in 78 overseas markets. That means it failed to hit $1 million in the vast majority of the territories in play. China led the way with a lackluster $13.8 million, followed by Mexico with $9.4 million, the United Kingdom with $5.3 million, Korea with $3.7 million and Brazil with $3.5 million.

 

“Elemental” faces an even bleaker road ahead. The family-friendly film opened to $15 million from just 17 international markets, bringing its global tally to a disastrous $44.5 million. In a note to press, Disney mentioned that “Elemental” launched in far fewer markets and that only three of the countries it has launched in — China ($5.2 million), Korea ($3.2 million) and Australia ($1.1 million) — are significant in terms of box office contributions. Elsewhere, the movie is rolling out on a staggered basis to “take advantage of local holidays.”

 

 

[Keyser_Soze]

I told this antecdote in another thread but some people just aren't aware DC stuff exists (beyond Batman and Superman). My mom could name tons of Marvel movies or characters but when I say, "what about Black Adam?" and she's like "whaa?"

[SaysWho?]

10 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

I told this antecdote in another thread but some people just aren't aware DC stuff exists (beyond Batman and Superman). My mom could name tons of Marvel movies or characters but when I say, "what about Black Adam?" and she's like "whaa?"

 

Doesn't help that Black Adam was the definition of, "Welp, that was a movie, all right."

[Greatoneshere]

I imagine DC Films' upcoming Blue Beetle movie will do even worse, but Aquaman 2 may do pretty well given how the first one did. And that'll be that for the old DCEU.

 

As for Elemental, I'm not sure having Peter Sohn direct again after the failure that was The Good Dinosaur was a good idea. The Good Dinosaur is one of Pixar's worst movies, along with the Cars movies. So it's not really a surprise Elemental isn't that great either.

[TwinIon]

I suppose I bought into some of the Flash hype and expected it to do a little better, but looking back I really should have expected it to flop. The marketing for Flash ended up resting entirely on Keaton coming back as Batman. Sure, there's some crowd who might be excited about that, but that was 30 years and (perhaps more importantly) 6 Batmen ago, only two of which I'd argue were actually successful. Besides, it's hard to sell a movie largely based a secondary character's nostalgia factor.

 

It also doesn't help that the only movies this Flash has been in have been terrible and performed poorly at the box office, and they came out years ago, and then the reviews weren't good.

 

The quality of the film would have held it back from doing too well in the long run, but that's not the determining factor for the opening weekend.

[Brian]

My 3 year old daughter was extremely indifferent when she saw the Elemental trailer. 

[skillzdadirecta]

9 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

I told this antecdote in another thread but some people just aren't aware DC stuff exists (beyond Batman and Superman). My mom could name tons of Marvel movies or characters but when I say, "what about Black Adam?" and she's like "whaa?"

My mom too. What's weird is she was around this comic stuff my whole life... my stepfather, her husband, was the one who got me into comics in the first place and she couldn't have cared less when I was growing up about comics and super heroes. Now she watches everything Marvel puts out, and she will watch Marvel movies on Disney on repeat if there's nothing else on. DC? She gives ZERO fucks.

[Bacon]

DC lol

[SoberChef]

Did a lot of back & forth debating if I'd go see this, ultimately arriving at the obvious point that I have no care for Miller nor his portrayal as Barry/Flash, furthermore, with this arriving on MAX within 45-60 days, I'm patient. I did go see 'The Blackening' however & that was a hell of a lot of fun!

[ort]

Fox News is running around high giving each other because this featured a non-binary character and is failing at the box office.

 

I have not seen it, but apparently it's a very minor side character and is their gender is never even brought up. GO WOKE GO BROKE!

[skillzdadirecta]

19 minutes ago, ort said:

Fox News is running around high giving each other because this featured a non-binary character and is failing at the box office.

 

Miller themselves is non-binary. I didn't think of it before, but could this be part of the reason for the B.O. failure too? Seems unlikely because both Spider-verse and the Marvel movies feature LGBTQ characters and those seem to be doing ok.

[ort]

I was talking about Elemental, which apparently has some minor side character who is supposed to be non-binary, but it never actually comes up in the flick.

 

Disney's 'Elemental,' which features 'non-binary' character, flops in opening weekend

WWW.FOXNEWS.COM

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Walt Disney's Pixar Animation Studios released another flop at the box office with its film "Elemental," which made only $29.5 million in its opening weekend.

 

[stepee]

Stop giving fox clicks!

[Kal-El814]

4 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Miller themselves is non-binary. I didn't think of it before, but could this be part of the reason for the B.O. failure too? Seems unlikely because both Spider-verse and the Marvel movies feature LGBTQ characters and those seem to be doing ok.

 

There’s a bunch of trans coding going on around Gwen, too.

[skillzdadirecta]

5 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

There’s a bunch of trans coding going on around Gwen, too.

Yeah I've heard that. 

[Guest]

@orthas graduated from telling us about his kink to trying to rope us in. We do not consent, sir.

[Remarkableriots]

How big of a flop is Blue Beetle projected to be?

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Remarkableriots said:

How big of a flop is Blue Beetle projected to be?

Looking like mid-high teens for opening weekend, last I checked

[Mercury33]

I’m sure the D+ is kind of a thing for Elemental but the hype and buzz around it has been non existent to bad. That’s hurts it worse. Everything is so expensive these days that’s families just aren’t gonna spend the money on a below average movie. If Elemental was Up or even Inside Out quality and people were talking about how good it was, people would be flocking to the theater despite the D+ expectations. 
 

People still love going to the movies, they just can’t afford to go see anything regardless of quality anymore. 

[skillzdadirecta]

39 minutes ago, Mercury33 said:

I’m sure the D+ is kind of a thing for Elemental but the hype and buzz around it has been non existent to bad. That’s hurts it worse. Everything is so expensive these days that’s families just aren’t gonna spend the money on a below average movie. If Elemental was Up or even Inside Out quality and people were talking about how good it was, people would be flocking to the theater despite the D+ expectations. 
 

People still love going to the movies, they just can’t afford to go see anything regardless of quality anymore. 

All of this is true. People went to see Super Mario Bros. in droves for example. "I'll wait for it to hit streaming" is definitely part of the calculus for the average movie goer these days especially knowing how quickly stuff is released on D+, MAX, Paramount and Peacock these days. Shit, John Wick 4 is already on VOD and I've seen ads for it coming to STARZ soon.

[Mercury33]

Yeah 100% I’ve def thought “ehh I want to see that but it just looks ok. I’ll just wait for steaming”

 

But I sure as shit made it priority to take my kid to see Mario lol. And I’m def making the time to see Spider Verse. 

[ort]

Well, first of all, the trailers for Elemental made it look completely boring and generic. I had zero desire to watch it after seeing the trailer. I'm sure others may have had different reactions, but it didn't do anything for me... plus, taking your kids to the movies is freaking expensive. It's like $50 bucks just to get seats for an adult and two kids. It's not like a huge expense or anything, but at some point you have to really do some math. You go out for lunch and a movie and get a slushy or whatever and you've spent $100 bucks easy. It all adds up, and if the movie looks bad, who is going to be running out the door with a handful of cash to watch some boring mediocre movie you'll completely forget about in a week???

[Kamusha]

A lot of superhero frnachises have been underperforming. Spider-Verse did well but at this point people are getting tired of the same old stuff. Give us something new and exciting. The Spider-Verse movies have felt so fresh.

 

Pixar is sadly losing their relevancy in the realm of animation. Spider-Man and TMNT have animated movies this summer that feature much better animation than Elemental. Pixar is supposed to be at the forefront of this, but now their animation feels boring when compared to what some other studios are pulling off. I give exception to Turning Red. That movie was genuinely groundbreaking in Pixar and Disney really hurt them by not releasing it in theaters.