Phil Lord and Chris Miller, after having a number of smash hits like The Lego Movie and the 21 Jump Street franchise under their belts, have become among the most desired screenwriters in Hollywood. Currently, they’re working on both a Spider-Man animated feature for Sony and Warner Bros’ big screen version of The Flash, starring Ezra Miller (The Perks of Being A Wallflower).
Given that there’s already a pretty popular television series starring Grant Gustin on The CW as the Barry Allen version of The Flash, there’s been some question as to which iteration Miller might play, even though the movies will not be connected to the television series as part of any shared universe.
Lord was recently a guest on the Hippojuice podcast (via /Film) where he gave an update on the film:
We’re trying to break a story. It’s interesting, because there’s a really popular TV show out there, and we’re trying to carve out space for the movie that’s apart from that. I think we’re doing alright. … I believe [our Flash] is going to be Barry Allen. … It’s going to be its own [thing, apart from the TV show] — we’re more trying to stick with the cinematic universe… it really is its own thing, and kind of a stand-alone movie. We’re just trying to think of the best story. I think you guys will like it, it’s kind of a different take on superhero stuff.
This basically confirms that we’ll have both a television and film version of the same character. Honestly though, I don’t see this as a terribly big deal. On average about 3-4 million viewers watch The Flash, and I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt that any confusion for that relatively modest audience (in comparison to the audience that will reach a feature film) will be limited.
More importantly, in a somewhat chaotic DC film slate that reportedly has five screenwriters assigned to Wonder Woman and at least three on Aquaman, the fact that The Flash‘s script situation is being approached in a much more stable manner is reassuring.
But only time will tell. The Flash is expected to see release in 2018.
Awesome…
But 2018? Really?
So… Here’s my thought. The author says ONLY about 3-4 million watch the show. But let’s talk demographics.
The average ticket sold at a theatre is $8. Now, that might skew down for matinees which I’d imagine you get less of with the super-hero films. Man of Steel scored under $300 million. That gives us a starting estimate of 37.5 million viewers. Super-hero movies and movies shot in multiple formats rely on repeat viewings. A standard traditional movie gets maybe 5% of its box from repeat viewers. Ever since Titanic (20% repeats), the big push (and advantage) for comic book movies is the repeat viewer rate, which I suspect is similar to Titanic’s; the draw of blockbusters isn’t necessarily that they appeal to that many more people but that they appeal to people who see the same movie more often. You know who does repeat viewing the most? Geeks, small children, teenage girls. And these three groups are defining what gets made due to astronomical repeat viewing rates.
I suspect 20% is a conservative estimate for super-hero films but that puts the number of people who saw MOS in an American cinema at 30 million, spitballing.
And I’ve had my ear to the ground on streaming, digital sales, etc. Despite not even retaining many of its fans, the buzz is that the sitcom Community is pulling more now that it has an owner interested purely in click count. It was considered a dismal spot in NBC’s lineup with around 2 million dedicated viewers. But Dan Harmon is going around saying that Nielsen numbers are about a tenth of his weekly audience size based on what Yahoo told him.
Then you have a TV show which doesn’t necessarily have the SAME viewers week to week.
I really am not convinced that movies have bigger audiences than TV shows on the whole. There’s a lot of hype there and a lot of ego on the administrative side of things, as well as the nature of marketing the two. TV shows tend to try to make you feel comfortable, like this thing they’re doing is just for you. Movie studios want you to think that a lot of people are going because the value proposition they’re selling you is social. I strongly suspect the audiences are quite similar in size though for genre TV and genre films. I might even give the edge to TV because repeat viewings don’t prop up the ratings we have, as deeply flawed and unreliable as Nielsen can be.
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