Why Blue Beetle And Aquaman 2 Might Be In Serious Trouble At The Box Office
It is absolutely no secret that DC movies have been having a tough go at the box office over the last few years. First, the pandemic absolutely upended the releases of both "Wonder Woman 1984" and "The Suicide Squad," which debuted on HBO Max and in theaters simultaneously, giving audiences very little motivation to risk going to a theater to see them. It certainly didn't help matters that "WW84" debuted to largely negative reviews. More recently, "Black Adam" flamed out pretty spectacularly, while "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" went down as one of the biggest bombs in superhero movie history. It's been rough, with only Matt Reeves' "The Batman" serving as a bright spot amidst the chaos.
To make matters worse, director Andy Muschietti's "The Flash" movie finally hit theaters this past weekend and it did not go well. Despite being hyped up quite a bit in the months leading up to the release, and with Michael Keaton's Batman returning for the first time in more than 30 years, the film still suffered a very disappointing $55 million domestic debut and will probably finish its run with around $350 million worldwide, give or take. It's going to lose a boatload of cash for Warner Bros. serving as the latest in a line of DC disappointments that has stretched on for several years now.
Now, all eyes are focused on the pair of DC movies that will arrive in the second half of 2023: "Blue Beetle" and "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom." One will try to introduce us to a brand new hero that many people in the mainstream have never heard about, and the other will try to live up to its predecessor, which proved to be an unexpected monster hit. Unfortunately, the outlook in both cases is no longer all that good.
Blue Beetle has been fighting an uphill battle the whole way
"Blue Beetle" is a movie that was never going to have an easy go of it in theaters. In the aftermath of the pandemic, new superheroes are having an incredibly tough time breaking out at the box office, as evidenced by The Rock's star power failing to get "Black Adam" over $400 million worldwide. We've also seen Marvel struggle on that front with "Eternals." The only winner in recent years is "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," and that's because we're grading that movie on a Covid curve. Other than that, the only superhero movies that have been hits have focused on established characters. "Venom: Let There Be Carnage," "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," "Spider-Man: No Way Home," "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," all established franchises, all hits.
With director Angel Manuel Soto's "Blue Beetle," Warner Bros. and DC are hoping that a Latino superhero origin story can put meat in seats despite very little awareness for the character outside of hardcore comic book fans. It is certainly encouraging that the studio moved this from a streaming release to a theatrical release, whereas "Batgirl" was canceled altogether. That also means the budget isn't in that outrageous $200 million range, which lowers the bar for success in terms of ticket sales.
The bigger problem is that DC Studios co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran are preparing to reboot the DC universe beginning next year. While the door is open for "Blue Beetle" to be part of that, there are no guarantees. As a result, that reboot looms large, and it's certainly played a part in making things difficult on these last few DC movies that are so firmly connected to the previous regime, which ultimately goes back ten years to Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel" and the inception of the so-called Snyderverse.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom has an unfair burden to bear
Ideally, audiences would show up for a movie simply because that movie might be good. The cinematic universe era of Hollywood has upended that concept inside of big franchises. This "out with the old" mentality that is taking over DC is certainly impacting hardcore fans, leaving Warner Bros. in an unenviable spot in promoting these last few films from the old regime. Gunn, for his part, has tried to help, saying very kind things about "The Flash" and more recently suggesting that Blue Beetle will be the "first DCU character" on Michael Rosenbaum's "Inside of You" podcast. At the end of the day, Gunn is a studio executive now, so he is trying to do his part to sell these movies as non-disposable.
For "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom," the situation is remarkably tricky. 2018's "Aquaman," which stars Jason Momoa as the water-dwelling hero, ended up raking in more than $1.1 billion globally and is still the highest-grossing DC movie ever. Naturally, that means there would be presumed interest in director James Wan's upcoming sequel. Unfortunately, we are now facing a five-year gap between installments. The film has been delayed several times and Wan has had to retool the film in the face of the looming changes at DC Studios. It's a tragically messy situation.
Fair or not, this movie now has to shoulder the burden of being the most likely one of the 2023 bunch to produce a hit for DC. If Wan delivers another crowd-pleaser, audiences may well still show up to see Momoa do his thing. If the movie ends up drawing mixed reviews like "WW84" or "Black Adam," then we could see a pretty big drop-off in ticket sales, making Gunn and Safran's job in the coming years all the more difficult. To say the pressure is on for the DC Universe would be an understatement.
"Blue Beetle" is currently set to hit theaters on August 18, 2023, while "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" will arrive on December 20, 2023.