Andy Muschietti shares his thoughts on why The Flash bombed at the box office, citing WB’s attempt to cater to audiences of all demographics.

It has been around a year and a half since The Flash debuted on the big screens, and the arguments surrounding its disastrous box office performance still seem to be as strong as ever. While the film went on to be regarded as arguably one of the most critically underrated films from the DC Universe, its performance at global box offices still needs to be justified.

The Flash. | Credits: Warner Bros.

Of course, everyone has their own opinions on it, and the mastermind behind the 2023 piece, filmmaker Andy Muschietti has finally shared his respective thoughts on the same as well. According to him, the Ezra Miller-led piece bombed because Warner Bros. repeated the same mistake that they did with Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Trying to cater to everyone.

Andy Muschietti shares why he feels The Flash bombed

While The Flash currently stands at 63% critical and 82% general approval ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, its box office performance still stands to be as confusing as ever. By the end of its run in 2023, the movie had grossed $271 million globally — an amount that is not so much of a small figure but still falls short while considering the budget size and projected marketing costs of the film that was made on $200 million (via The Numbers).

A still from the movie. | Credits: The Flash / Warner Bros.

Now director Muschietti is finally breaking his silence on just why he feels this happened: Because the action flick “failed” to hit “all 4 quadrants” of moviegoer demographics (women under 25, men under 25, women over 25, men over 25), despite Warner Bros. best efforts at trying to cater to everyone.

During a recent appearance on Radio TU’s “La Baulera del Coso” show, the filmmaker talked about the same, saying,

‘The Flash’ failed, among all the other reasons, because it wasn’t a movie that appealed to all four quadrants. It failed at that. When you spend $200 million making a movie, [Warner Bros.] wants to bring even your grandmother to the theaters.

That sounds similar to something that happened with Zack Snyder‘s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice as well. While the 2016 flick had a commendable box office performance, its reviews weren’t all that giving as it earned a very rotten 29% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

The reason behind this was simple: The script had to undergo many changes because the studios wanted to bring in all demographics. This excessive meddling resulted in a hot hodgepodge mess that was the critically panned piece. Additionally, this was even followed by Snyder leaving the project that followed (i.e. Justice League) midway through production because Warner Bros. ostensibly wanted to cater to everyone, so that’s that as well.

Andy Muschietti also revealed people “don’t care” about the Flash much

A still from the movie. | Credits: The Flash / Warner Bros.

On the one hand, while the studios ostensibly tried their best to curate a piece that appealed to all audiences, the truth is, their plan could have never succeeded due to this very perspective. As Andy Muschietti explained, this was because a lot of people simply didn’t care about the respective character as much as they did other beloved DC superheroes.

Noting this stood especially true in the women under and over 25 demographics, the filmmaker continued to say,

I’ve found in private conversations that a lot of people just don’t care about the Flash as a character. Particularly the two female quadrants. All of that is just the wind going against the film I’ve learned.

That being said and considering Warner Bros.’s intentions to have the film serve audiences of all demographics, it might as well be accepted that The Flash was bound to be doomed right from the start. And that fact being acknowledged, the best thing fans can do now is hope the studios don’t repeat this same error with James Gunn‘s revamped version of the DCU as well.

The Flash can currently be streamed on Netflix.