The Flash Gets The Worst DC Audience Score Ever
The Flash is now tied with Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice with the lowest audience score ever in the DCU on Cinemascore.
When James Gunn first took on the reins of the DCU, promising to correct the tumultuous journey of the Snyderverse with a clean slate, he and many other Warner Brothers’ executives touted Ezra Miller’s The Flash as one of the greatest superhero films to have graced the franchise. Unfortunately, general audiences don’t seem to hold the same reverence for the film, with The Flash receiving a B rating from Cinemascore.
This puts it in a tie with 2016’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice for the worst audience score of any movie in the DC universe. It wouldn’t be a DCU box office outing without a host of controversy. The franchise has seemingly become plagued with a number of polarizing films.
While some hail Zack Snyder‘s work on early DC films such as 2013’s Man of Steel and Dawn of Justice as the greatest superhero content to ever be produced, others find the films tepid and exhausting, and indicative of larger issues plaguing corporate comic book films, fueling common entertainment issues such as superhero fatigue.
This polarity seems to explain why The Flash has received a B rating, likely stemming from a number of fans rating the film incredibly high against a host of fans review bombing with abysmal negative scores.
This score places The Flash dead last in Cinemascore’s “New Releases” tab, being outperformed by both the Tim Story horror comedy The Blackening as well as Disney‘s latest outing, Elemental.
There is an additional layer of irony couched in the subtext of these audience scores. Considering The Flash was a highly controversial movie for some time, Elemental managed to secure a mostly positive fan reception, despite bombing on opening weekend.
In addition to corporate Hollywood difficulties which mired the film’s production such as the Warner Brothers Discovery merger and the change in DCU management, there was also a great deal of personal turmoil clouding the film’s reception due to the recent media storm surrounding the Flash actor Ezra Miller.
Miller now famously rampaged across the country over the course of 2022, allegedly engaging in a number of high-profile crimes such as kidnapping, use of illicit narcotics, and physical assault, eventually bringing the state of The Flash into question, as many fans wished to see the 30-year-old star behind bars.
Despite taking some time away from the public eye, and Warner Brothers employees suggesting that The Flash would be such a cinematic masterpiece that general audiences would be quick to forgive and forget, it seems as though crowds are struggling to rectify their feelings for the film against their feelings toward the true tales of Miller’s various exploits.
With The Flash scoring so poorly with fans, perhaps the film will serve as the final nail in the coffin for the former DCU, bringing fans into the newfound James Gunn universe not with a bang, but with a whisper.
