Want to know why The Flash failed? According to its director, it's because it failed to appeal to the, uh, "four quadrants"

We all know The Flash wasn't a good movie, but according to its director it didn't do well because "it wasn’t a movie that appealed to all four quadrants."

It's pretty clear from looking at the original DCU that it was all a panic response to everything Marvel was doing with its cinematic universe. Like, who wanted a Black Adam film? You don't just make things for the sake of having a connected world, and you especially don't listen to The Rock when it comes to making business decisions (we all remember that Henry Caville Superman cameo). The Flash too clearly just existed to build that universe out more than having a good film for Warner Bros, and despite the cost it really should have been written off considering all of Ezra Miller's controversies. But if you ask director Andy Muschietti, the reason it flopped is because it didn't have enough broad appeal.

"The Flash failed, among all the other reasons, because it wasn’t a movie that appealed to all four quadrants. It failed at that," Muschietti said in an interview with Radio Tu where he also spoke about his upcoming Batman movie and Shadow of the Colossus adaptation (thanks, Variety). "When you spend $200 million making a movie, [Warner Bros.] wants to bring even your grandmother to the theaters." The director went on to explain that he found "in private conversations that a lot of people just don’t care about the Flash as a character. Particularly the two female quadrants. All of that is just the wind going against the film I’ve learned."

For some context, that four quadrant thing he's going on about is the very reductive breakdown of demographics into men over and under 25, and women over and under 25. Personally, I'm not confident that even if you did take your grandmother that it would have helped out - the DCU was clearly on its deathbed at that point, so why go see a film that ultimately won't lead anywhere?

Either way, Muschietti's fine because he still gets to make movies, who cares why it did bad! That baby rescue scene is a bit ridiculous though.