Warner Bros bet $220M on Ezra Miller — and released a bomb it couldn't promote

Warner Bros cast Ezra Miller as the Flash in 2014 and spent the next decade building the DC universe around him. The solo film was delayed repeatedly through several directors, and by 2022 Miller was accumulating arrests — twice in Hawaii in March — and a felony burglary charge in Vermont.

The studio's reaction was split. Emergency meetings in April 2022 kept the film on its release date but paused future projects with the actor; in August, as a felony charge landed, Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav told analysts the studio had seen the film and thought it was 'terrific'. The film would launch with its star taking no part in promotion, appearing only at the premiere.

The Flash opened on 16 June 2023 to a $55 million domestic weekend, then suffered one of the worst second-weekend drops in superhero history. It finished with about $271 million worldwide against a $220 million production budget and a reported $150 million promotional spend — a net loss Deadline later estimated at roughly $155 million, and over $200 million once marketing is counted, making it the most expensive superhero flop to that date.

Warner Bros released The Flash without its lead in promotion, hoping to salvage the budget, but the toxic hook killed the campaign and the film lost over $200M.

The studio spent nine years and hundreds of millions on a star whose instability was public before the film went into production.

Once the film was finished, shelving it meant writing off the whole budget — so Warner Bros chose release, and promotion without its lead actor.

Miller was the film's entire marketing hook, and the hook was toxic: every promotional opportunity was a liability, so the film opened with almost no campaign.

The risk in casting a volatile star is not the set — it is the release. Warner Bros spent $220M and a decade of delays on a film it could not put its lead actor in front of a camera to sell.

The flop came as Warner Bros was already remaking its DC slate; The Flash's follow-ups never materialised and the new DC universe recast the character.