‘The Flash’ Pulls In 1.1M U.S. Households in Max Weekend Debut

Apr 22, 2024

EXCLUSIVE: DC’s The Flash, the Justice League spinoff movie starring Ezra Miller in the title role, pulled in 1.1M US households in it’s Live+2 Day window on Max per Samba TV. The Andy Muschietti directed Warner Bros. title hit Warners streaming service on Aug. 25.

That figure is -8% from the weekend debut of Black Adam during Dec. 16-18 which clocked 1.2M U.S. households.

The Flash, which cost $200M before P&A, was long mired in a PR controversy, its leading man Miller the subject of myriad tabloid headlines, public scuffles and arrests a year before the movie’s opening. He was largely left on the sidelines to promote the film; his one appearance being the world premiere in Hollywood days before the pic’s June 16 opening. A bulk of the film’s cast, including Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck, were limited in press ops, further hampered by the unavailability of late-night talk shows during the early part of the WGA strike. Thus, The Flash fell apart at the box office opening to $55M domestic, well under high $60M projections, and finaled at $108.1M domestic and $268.5M global ticket sales. The Flash had a 71-day theatrical window before hitting Max versus Black Adam which had 57 days.

It should be noted that in Samba TV analytics, a bulk of current streamers’ movie fare have posted lower viewership numbers than they did during the pandemic (late 2020-2021). Higher viewership figures stemmed from Warner Media’s theatrical-day-and-date distribution plan with HBO Max; not to mention more people were staying at home, skittish about attending cinemas during Covid. Read, James Gunn’s Suicide Squad pulled in 2.8M U.S. households during its first weekend on HBO Max, while Wonder Woman 1984 did 2.2M.

In the same breath, Warner Bros.’ return to pure theatrical releases with The Batman in March 2022, saw its April HBO Max first week debut clock 4.1M households, which outstripped the first seven days of such day-and-date tentpoles as The Suicide Squad (3.5M), Wonder Woman 1984 (3.2M), The Matrix Resurrections (3.2M) and Dune (2.3M).

In regards to The Flash, households in the A45-54 group over-indexed by the highest margin of age groups at +10%. Hispanic households over-performed by 21%. Among the top 25 largest DMAs, Pittsburgh, PA over-indexed the most (+57%), followed by Sacramento, CA (+32%) and Phoenix, AZ (+20%).

Black Adam by comparison saw overindexing among Gen Z (A20-24) and millennials (A25-34) households respectively at 6% and 3%. Black households over-indexed by 23% and Hispanic households over-indexed by 6%, while Caucasian and Asian-American households under-indexed for Black Adam. Of the top 25 largest markets, Seattle, WA over-indexed the most (+57%) for the Dwayne Johnson movie, followed by Portland, OR (+41%) and Sacramento, CA (+39%). Black Adam repped the biggest solo domestic box office debut for Johnson at $67M. The DC pic finaled at $168.1M domestic, $393.2M WW.

Samba TV’s research panel includes 3 million smart TVs, balanced and weighted to the U.S. Census across age, gender, ethnicity and household income. Its panel is nearly 100 times larger than Nielsen’s household footprint of 45K homes.

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