Talk:The Flash (film)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 September 2023

The film has grossed $268,5 million worldwide and not $269 million in the introduction of the page! 2804:7F2:6A5:3034:B5C4:2D5F:136E:5C2A (talk) 03:58, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

 Done — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 06:59, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

"The Trash" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect The Trash has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 October 3 § The Trash until a consensus is reached. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 07:21, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 November 2023

The Flash is a commercial failure. 79.43.3.199 (talk) 08:30, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Liu1126 (talk) 14:19, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

box office bomb?

exactly what sources are being used as this is mentioned several times in the article, " The film has grossed $271.3 million worldwide, becoming one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time, with projections of a $200 million loss for Warner Bros." I do not see any sources for the claim it will loss 200 million for WB

"Following its lackluster opening weekend, the film is considered one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time, with expected losses for Warner Bros. to be as much as $200 million"

the only linked source that actually mentions bomb states "this does put The Flash in jeopardy of being a box office bomb, though it is a bit early to say for sure", mentioning in the sourced article it is too soon to say for sure.

"Several publications labeled the film a box office bomb, with The Hollywood Reporter calling it "snubbed" and /Film saying that the hype "proved to be hot air" following poor box-office returns."

this part of the article claims sources labeled it a bomb but then reference that actually said snubbed and hot air, not bomb. with the sources only commenting on other films as bombs in comparison to the flash Holydiver82 (talk) 22:57, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

You can always help improve the article and its accuracy by finding reliable sources which call it a bomb in the body of the source. You can WP:BEBOLD and add them yourself, though I encourage keeping the process of WP:HEADLINE and MOS:ACCLAIMED in mind when doing so. We had a similar discussion at Talk:The Marvels#Box Office Bomb which concluded in using the term "underperformed at the box office" in the lead and noting high-quality publication's label of "box-office bomb", a change in tune I think would benefit many Wikipedia film articles to remain neutral and objective in our reporting of such box office failures. Trailblazer101 (talk) 23:38, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. This is another case of jumping the gun before the necessary sourcing is available. Multiple high-quality sources are needed for both a final loss estimate and for the "box office bomb" label. Such sources may not appear until the following year after the film is released, so likely sometime later in 2024 if it happens. To be clear, it is fine to mention a projected loss with proper sourcing, but the label goes beyond projecting and would require its own high-quality sourcing. --GoneIn60 (talk) 19:02, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

The "projected loss" has no proper source either. When I tried to chase it down, I got a random tweet. 108.21.91.23 (talk) 03:25, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

I absolutely hate calling any films a "box office bomb" as that is a completely POV term that doesn't really belong on wikipedia. Let's stick to the facts. Spanneraol (talk) 04:06, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

and that term is used extremely often on wiki, pretty much any movie that either lost money or is perceived to have done badly is called a box office bomb in the lead, the majority of the time without any sources to support the statement. based on how it is used pretty much lost all meaning. Holydiver82 (talk) 17:47, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with using that term per se, provided that there is an adequate number of sources that support the WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim. There was recently an RfC on whether the phrase "considered to be one of the greatest" violated WP:PUFFERY that ended with a resounding "no, as long as there are sources". InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:14, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

I went through dozens of different films that used the term box office bomb in the article. at best 10% of them actually had any sources to support the statement, and the majority didnt meet the source guidelines of MOS Acclaimed. the overwhelming majority of articles use box office bomb based on opinion/feeling with no sources Holydiver82 (talk) 19:30, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

As I said previously, those should either be tagged with {{additional citation needed}} or {{citation needed}}, or removed outright if the claim is extremely dubious. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:32, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

10% is surprisingly higher than expected. Welcome to the life of a Wikipedia editor. Sometimes we spend more time policing articles than we do improving them. Sad really. -- GoneIn60 (talk) 19:33, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

agreed, also do not see any sources listed that actually back up the claim. seems like it should be removed from article until someone can provide some reliable sources for such a significant claim Holydiver82 (talk) 17:48, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

High-quality reliable sources that describe The Flash as a "box-office bomb": WaPo, The Guardian, TheWrap, Esquire, /Film, Yahoo! News, CBC, The Independent, THR. "Box-office flop": Vanity Fair, The Guardian, Variety. Seems sufficient to satisfy MOS:ACCLAIMED. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:31, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for locating these, Infinite! I should hopefully be able to implement them to the article shortly. Trailblazer101 (talk) 17:25, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I have added back the List of biggest box-office bombs to the header, since sources currently rank it at #8 biggest of all time (nominal). GarlicBreadBen (talk) 15:25, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

I have reverted your addition because this claim is not supported in this article. Just because one of our lists does the math and organizes it one way does not mean it can just be added to the lead of an article without any sources supporting the claim, per WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. The list article is also not a source for that statement. Trailblazer101 (talk) 15:40, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

What about other films that currently only have that list as a source, but mention this in the header? For example, The Lone Ranger? GarlicBreadBen (talk) 17:07, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Just because other articles do one thing does not mean every other article should also do it, considering they are editing by different individuals. We would need sources cited that actually contextualize it as such in order for this WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim to be added into the article, especially in the lead which is supposed to summarize the key points of the article, not to add in loaded language. We cannot simply base an addition off of a Wikipedia list itself, as all claims require reliable sourcing. Trailblazer101 (talk) 18:03, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Would it be ok to readd, or maybe with the ammended "one of the largest box office bombs of 2023" using the following sources, all of whom are approved sources under WP:RSP and refer to it as "[one of] the biggest flops in Hollywood history"? https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/marvels-2023-biggest-flop-flash-145743010.html https://deadline.com/2024/05/biggest-box-office-bombs-2023-lowest-grossing-movies-1235902825/ https://thedirect.com/article/box-office-flops-2023-money-loss GarlicBreadBen (talk) 18:43, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

The Direct is not a reliable source, while the Yahoo link is just hosting a ComingSoon.net article (which is not the best source). Deadline's article is already used in this article to cover the net losses of this film. I don't think we need to try and be cagey with the wording and putting WP:UNDUEWEIGHT on a particular year for this. The article already notes it is a box-office bomb, so that is covering the most important aspect of its box-office performance. Trying to determine how much this bombed compared to others is not really necessary to convey that point, and I don't think noting it was one of the biggest really adds much, especially when we already note how much it grossed vs the budget and what the estimated losses are. Trailblazer101 (talk) 19:22, 4 November 2024 (UTC)