Remember the build-up to The Flash in 2023? You had Ezra Miller out there acting like a weirdo; you had Warner Bros. shutting down the DCEU so that every movie coming out that year was pointless. You also had James Gunn proclaiming it one of the best superhero movies he had ever seen. Fun times. Of course, when the film came out audiences felt differently and it was one of the year’s biggest flops. But director Andy Muschietti feels like talking about it some more, anyway, and he thinks he’s figured out why the movie failed.
According to Muschietti on Radio TU, a bunch of factors figured into The Flash‘s demise, including Miller’s actions. Well, on that he’s right.
“It’s the result of a mental health situation, you know,” said Muschietti. “It turned out the way it turned out, let’s say. I mean, he was dealing with a mental health situation, and well, when you make a movie, there are things you just can’t control. One of them is when actors have a public relations crisis. You know, he got into trouble, was arrested in Hawaii, etc…”
“I had, in general, a very good experience with him. He’s a great actor, a great comedian. I was very surprised by him. But then, towards the end, I came across all of this. I’d say this happened months before the release, just before the premiere, and well, it was a setback.”
Muschietti continued by blaming superhero fatigue, which I think is debatable, and that The Flash doesn’t appeal to everybody under the sun…
“Later, other factors piled up, like, you know, the fatigue with the superhero genre. Years later, I started learning about other things, like how when a movie like this is made, there’s an expectation to appeal to all four quadrants of the audience. And this is a movie that, apart from everything else I mentioned, I think failed in the sense that it didn’t appeal to all four quadrants of the audience.”
He continued, “When a $200 million movie is made, the studio expects to bring everyone, even your grandmother, to the theater. And in private conversations later on, I learned things like how a lot of people weren’t interested in Flash as a character. Half of those four quadrants — the two female quadrants — many women didn’t care about Flash as a character.”
So I’m not a believer in the “superhero fatigue” theory. Yes, DC and Marvel experienced as severe drop in interest at the same time, but I would say the quality and importance of those movies was also in doubt.
Muschietti’s claim that women weren’t interested in the Flash as a character is debatable. For one thing, it’s his responsibility to make him interesting. Two, how does he explain the success of The Flash TV series for so long, and the fact that fans wanted Grant Gustin in the movie? They clearly care about the character, just not the movie
Of course, he leaves out the key reason The Flash failed and it’s that it just wasn’t very good. That, combined with the DCEU coming to an end, was its downfall and nothing was going to change that. Let’s hope Gunn comes up with a cool way to reintroduce Flash into the DCU soon.
