For those saying Flash is doing poorly because of Multiverse and Superhero burnout...the #1 movie (in it's FOURTH WEEK of release) is Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse. Which is all multiverse, and all superhero. It's made $560M on a budget of $100M. And it beat not just Flash, but Pixar's latest (Elemental) and the tail end of the latest Transformers movie and Little Mermaid. Doesn't seem like people are waiting for streaming on it, despite it being animated.
Doesn't seem like people are burned out on multiverse or comic books so much as they don't like The Flash.
Yeah this is a good point.
I think there's a big difference between the superheroes of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and those of the DCU and MCU, though. Spider-Man is a bold movie, with aggressive, daring, relatively original visual design, and where the multiverse isn't just some slightly lame excuse for cameos/nostalgia or just a plot point, but used in an extremely gung-go, bold way, that's both very "in your face", and very artistically cool, that uses the multiverse to really "go places". It's also a movie that takes risks on a wide variety of levels. It's a young, energetic, explosive movie that doesn't at feel like it's restricted by any kind of "corporate vision", or that it's having to please Kevin Feige (though I have no doubt it does, at least in being so successful), or whatever.
The last time an MCU movie even came close to taking this level of risk was Guardians of the Galaxy 1. The last time a DCU movie did was... never (Aquaman was closest, but still far away).
I think the "superhero burnout" is much less about the general concept of superheroes, and much more about how they're implemented in the semi-serious, epic, extremely corporate visions that are the MCU and DCU. Multiverse burnout is similar - the multiverse has just been a plot-point and buzzword. Even in films like Multiverse of Madness the multiverse itself wasn't particularly exciting or interestingly used compared to these animated Spider-Verse movies, nor, for that matter, compared to Everything Everywhere All At Once.
I think the real message for Hollywood here is that audiences are increasingly bored of the same 'ol same 'ol when it comes to superheroes and multiverses. Unfortunately, the MCU has the next few years planned out and it appears to 150% be the same 'ol same 'ol. Whether the DCU goes the same way depends very much on what Gunn takes from all this.
To be clear I do believe Disney/MCU will course-correct eventually, but I think we'll see a lot of not-bad-but-kind-of-boring and slightly-half-hearted MCU films over the next 2-3 years. If the do the X-Men, it's going to need to basically not be the MCU as we know it, if they want them to succeed. It does feel like the X-Men would fit a bolder, less standardized vision well, especially the modern ones.
(As an aside, I can't get over how dull and poorly-written Quantumania was - it's still not a terrible movie, but solely because of the extremely strong performances of all the leads - Michael Douglas still stealing scenes at 78 despite a small role! - relative to the material they're working with, and the surprisingly excellent visual design, which I admit I misjudged from the trailers. But then the latter is undermined by some truly bad SFX at times, as has happened with a couple of other MCU movies. It feels like there's some kind of lottery as to whether they get to have good SFX.)