After weeks of preview screenings and a slow international rollout, The Flash finally raced into U.S. theaters yesterday evening.
According to early estimates from Deadline, it's looking like the Scarlet Speedster's first big screen solo outing made $9.7 million from Thursday night showings. Those began at 3pm and Warner Bros. timed the news of director Andy Muschietti being tapped to helm The Brave and the Bold with its release.
For the studio, building positive buzz around The Flash has become a crucial part of its marketing campaign. With more reviews counted, the movie's current Rotten Tomatoes score has dipped again, this time to 66%. That's still better than most DCEU titles, of course.
Also of note is the fact the 95% Audience Score has fallen to 88%. Again, that's not a bad score, but this may be indicative of how word-of-mouth could affect The Flash during its opening weekend.
A $9.7 million haul puts this movie in the same ballpark as Venom ($10 million), Doctor Strange ($9.4 million), and Aquaman ($9 million).
Opening weekend estimates are all over the place. Conservative guesses place it somewhere between $70 million and $75 million. On the lower end, it could debut with $68 million, while higher predictions suggest $80 million is possible.
That's on par with Aquaman and Black Adam; the former grossed over $1 billion, while the latter was a box office flop. As a result, it's impossible to predict which way The Flash is going at this stage. $9.7 million is a solid start, though.
"Far from the greatest superhero movie ever made and not quite among the worst," we said in our review, "The Flash is still another mediocre effort from the DCEU with appalling VFX and a messy story that the excellent Michael Keaton and Sasha Calle alone are unable to save."
The Flash is now playing in theaters.