Warner Bros. Pictures’ “The Flash” and Pixar’s “Elemental” got off to disappointing starts this holiday weekend, with both films coming in below expectations.
The Ezra Miller-led DC Comics adaptation took in just $55 million for the three-day domestic haul, down from the $70 million projections being thrown about last week.
The mixed reviews and B CinemaScore indicate response to the film hasn’t been that good. The film also stumbled internationally with $75 million from 78 markets for a global debut of $139 million, suggesting this could well be another “Black Adam”-style flop.
“Elemental” meanwhile pulled in just $29.5 million domestically, down from the $40 million projections of the other week and easily the worst Pixar theatrical opening to date – well behind “Onward” and “The Good Dinosaur” at $39 million each.
Internationally it made an even more tepid further $15 million, bringing its debut weekend to just $44.5 million. Reviews have been better, with an A CinemaScore suggesting it may have some legs in the coming weeks.
Still, both films cost around $200 million to make and roughly $100 million to market, meaning both could end up being costly flops. The other newcomer this week was “The Blackening”, which made $6 million in its opening weekend from a $5 million budget.
Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” landed in third place with a still strong $27.8 million in its third weekend – the film having racked up $280 million domestically and $489.3 million worldwide so far.
Paramount’s “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” was fourth with a further $20 million – a second-weekend drop of a rather large 67%. It has made $103 million domestically and $174.3 million internationally but will need to keep going to profit from its $200 million budget.
“The Little Mermaid” closed out the top five with $11.6 million in its fourth weekend. The film has made $466 million worldwide to date, $253 million of that domestically. With its costly $250 million budget, it may not break even in its theatrical run.
In limited release, the news was much rosier. Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City” collected $790,000 from six theaters in New York and Los Angeles. That gave it a $132,211 per screen average – the best screen average seen since 2016’s “La La Land”.
The film expands next weekend into 1,500 theaters and hopes to avoid the fate of a lot of acclaimed indies like “Tar” and “Beau Is Afraid” which had strong limited starts and then faceplanted upon opening wide.
