Highlights
- The Flash, despite its disappointing box office performance, will be streaming on Max starting August 25th, 2023, providing a victory beyond theaters.
- The announcement of The Flash's streaming release has received generally positive responses on social media, highlighting the film's appeal beyond its theatrical run.
- The Flash's delayed streaming release adds to the trend of DC films underperforming at the box office, indicating a need for reevaluation within the new DCU.
The Flash release date on the Max streaming was finally announced. The announcement comes amidst speculation about tactics to offset the film’s performance at the box office
The Flash was a highly-anticipated project throughout its development, notably riddled with the controversy surrounding reshoots and the antics of lead star Ezra Miller. The film had a disappointing box office debut, and continued to track below studio expectations throughout its theatrical run but showed no early signs of an impending debut on Warner Bros Discovery's Max streaming service.
While it initially seemed like The Flash was tracking to set another disappointing record after its disappointing box office showing, a recent announcement has confirmed a release date for the film on Max. The news was delivered in a post to the official Max Twitter account containing a close-up promotional image featuring star Ezra Miller and the release date at the bottom. The post included a caption saying, “Worlds collide. #TheFlash will be streaming August 25 on Max.”
Despite the announcement, The Flash still takes home the disappointing award for the longest wait for a streaming platform to release a DC film, with the 71-day-wait falling short of the 77 days fans initially thought they’d have to wait but still exceeding the 67-day wait time of the first runner up. The second spot belongs to Shazam 2; the sequel also performed worse than expected at the box office. With prior reports putting its streaming release somewhere in the fall, it would seem that Warner Bros expected to get more mileage from its theatrical run.
The announcement for The Flash debuting on Max has seen generally positive responses on social media, feeding into the idea that The Flash finally found a victory beyond theatres, which first materialized as the film was released on video-on-demand services such as iTunes, Google Play, and Vudu. The film is a relic of the older order at DC Studios, and that status has seemingly played a part in the poor box office outings of recent DC films. Many fans have cited the lack of a place in the new DCU as a big turn-off from heading to theatres for these projects.
While it would be easy to put The Flash aside as the final flash of the Snyderverse era of DC films, the transitory element to it and the fact that two more projects from within that franchise exist, with Blue Beetle already out and Aquaman 2 on the way, make it difficult to shrug off, especially at DC Studios. While the film has received a warm welcome in terms of reviews, it’s clear that Blue Beetle has too much riding on its success to deliver realistically. What effect these last three projects will have on the kick-off period to Gunn's rebooted DC Universe remains to be seen.
The Flash will be available for streaming on Max starting August 25th, 2023.
Source: Max/Twitter