I generally don't cheer when a movie fails. I've given bad reviews to movies I don't like, regardless of their success or failure, but I don't generally celebrate a movie flopping.
I will make an exception for The Flash, though, even though I haven't seen it, because more than anything in recent memory, it illustrates Hollywood's unparalleled hubris when it comes to making movies.
Well before The Flash began principal photography, Ezra Miller was caught on video choking a woman in Iceland in April 2020. I found this news story such an oddity when it first broke, but the world was in lockdown then and there were other things to worry about, so I forgot about it. Warner Brothers was fully aware of this and yet pushed through with Miller, shooting their blighted movie a year later, in April of 2021. Incidentally, around the same time, they fired Johnny Depp from another movie because of his legal troubles (that he eventually overcame), but more on that later.
When Warner Brothers finally dropped a trailer for The Flash in early 2022, I suddenly found myself remembering that April 2020 news report and asking, "whatever came of that?" I even posted a vlog entry about it on my now dormant YouTube channel. The story had been quite effectively buried; I couldn't find anything more substantial about it than people sharing opinions on message boards. Not a lot of people watched my video, but some of the few who did reacted dismissively, saying that I was making a big deal out of nothing, with at least one commenter saying "dude, it was a joke" with no real evidence to back up this assertion. I wanted to make it a jumping off point for discussing how hypocritically selective Hollywood's cancel culture is, considering what had happened to Johnny Depp, but as a talking point it kind of went nowhere.
It's pretty common knowledge what happened after that; Miller's legal troubles came to light, one after the other, Warner Brothers embarked on a bizarre marketing campaign that excluded Miller, but included random celebrities like Tom Cruise and Stephen King, and the film went on to flop in the most spectacular fashion imaginable, with its second weekend box-office drop being the worst in the history of the now doomed DC Extended Universe.
I'd like to reiterate: Warner Brothers had a pretty good hint of the s**tstorm to come when Miller choked that woman in Iceland a full year before a single frame of The Flash had even been shot. With shooting halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, they had a full year to recalibrate, including the opportunity to recast the role with someone who wouldn't have been a lightning rod for controversy, like Grant Gustin for example. For reasons only they know, though, they thought they could magically make their problems go away by pretending Miller's shenanigans never happened.
It is debatable whether or not Miller's legal problems were what effectively kneecapped The Flash's box-office prospects, but what I respectfully submit is not up for debate is that this was entirely and completely avoidable. Warner Brothers could have fired Miller the same way they fired Johnny Depp, but they chose not to, and I wonder if we'll ever find out why. Whatever they would have lost in buying out Miller's contract, assuming they even had to, could not possibly compare to the tens--possibly hundreds--of millions they are now destined to lose on this movie. I find myself cringing at the arrogance of the Warner Brothers execs who greenlit this movie thinking that what was happening in the real world would not ultimately affect their bottom line. It's fitting that their heads rolled long before this movie was crapped into theaters, though part of me wishes they'd been around to reap the fruits of their hubris.
Warner Brothers' rivals over at Disney/Marvel would do well to pay attention, given that two of their own stars are now facing legal troubles of their own. Now, while admittedly Jonathan Majors and Tenoch Huerta may triumph over their legal troubles as Johnny Depp did, Disney should, at the very least, tread carefully.
No comments:
Post a Comment