What ruined The Flash (2023) was by my reckoning three things, one of which I want to discuss.

The first was Ezra Miller’s fairly deviant public behavior.

The second was at least two directors shaping the movie prior to Andy Muschietti coming on to the project, which is related to the third, namely constantly sinking money into a production when there’s no guarantee that doing so will fix whatever is believed to be the problem.

That appears to be happening to Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023), a movie that has been test screening badly, so Warner Bros Discovery has decided to beat it into shape with an unprecedented amount of reshoots.

Now there’s no rule that says that because a movie test screens badly means it will fail at the box office, but conversely no one wants to release a movie that it appears that people – even admittedly a fairly small sample – don’t enjoy.

This is an interesting question as far Aquaman goes because the first movie wasn’t particularly good, yet went on to earn over a billion dollars though apparently the sequel is so questionable that extensive reshoots are happening.

Did I mention that the first movie wasn’t particularly good?

That being the case, how bad is Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, anyway?

Because let’s be clear, if the upcoming Aquaman sequel crashes, I get the feeling that it will resonate and taint all upcoming DC Studios projects.