As next week’s long-delayed “The Flash” reminds us, there is nothing inexpensive when Hollywood unleashes marketing campaigns for major movies. Like mini military maneuvers, promotional costs can jump from $30 million to three or four times that and require nailing precisely specific dates for the crucial opening weekend.
And all it takes to undo that monumental effort is one scandal.
As Warner Bros. was quickly reminded when Ezra Miller, the titular character in their $200 million-plus superhero saga “The Flash,” began a self-destructive binge that threatened “The Flash” ever being seen.
This “Flash,” after decades in development, involves time travel and boasts the return of two Batmans — Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck. Actual production wrapped in October 2021. A release was scheduled for last July.
Having survived years of changing concepts and scripts, “The Flash” was soon plagued by leading man issues. The multiple reported incidents and legal troubles of Miller, 30, boggle the mind: a purported strangling incident in Iceland, arrests in Hawaii, harassment allegations in Massachusetts, and in August 2022, a burglary charge, to name a few.
At that point WB and Miller confirmed he would get treatment for “mental health issues.”
Sadly, “The Flash” is hardly alone in its highly publicized near-derailment. Will Smith’s shocking Oscar slap at comedian Chris Rock prompted a 10-year ban from his attending any Academy Awards ceremony. It also doomed Smith’s subsequent film, the $100 million slave drama “Emancipation,” from any hope of Oscar attention.
In 2016 Nate Parker was zooming to Hollywood heights with his rousing slave rebellion epic “The Birth of a Nation” – the title intentionally a gloss on D.W. Griffith’s racist silent era epic. Parker starred in, wrote and made his directing debut with “Birth.” He then made history at Sundance when “Birth” was purchased for distribution for a record-busting price.
That success prompted renewed attention to 1999 rape allegations of a fellow Penn State student against Parker. Soon, that story dominated every discussion of Parker’s “Birth” and blighted his career.
In a sad echo of Parker’s plight, Jonathan Majors, a rising Black star after outstanding work in “Creed 3” and as the Marvel villain Kang in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” was booked in NYC on assault charges in a domestic dispute with a woman. Majors, 33, was immediately dropped from promotional campaigns for the Texas Rangers and the Army, replaced in an upcoming movie, dropped by his management and publicity agencies. Now, who knows whether Majors’ Kang will return in future Marvel epics?
