Blue Beetle And Haunted Mansion Pass $100 Million At The Box Office In A Tale Of Two Disappointments
Over Labor Day weekend, a couple of major blockbusters hit a box office milestone, with both Disney's "Haunted Mansion" and Warner Bros.' "Blue Beetle" passing the $100 million mark globally. On the one hand, it's a big number that is a significant moment for any movie's run in theaters. But in this case, for both studios, it's a number that still isn't high enough. That means we're looking at disappointment, albeit of varying degrees for each of these films. It's all a relative, case-by-case thing. Let's get into the relativity of it all with these two blockbuster hopefuls, shall we?
"Blue Beetle" came in third and pulled in $7.1 million in its third weekend, representing just a 41% drop from the prior week, per The Numbers. With that, DC's latest superhero offering now sits at $58.7 million domestically to go with $45.9 million internationally for a grand total of $104.6 million. Meanwhile, much further down on the charts, "Haunted Mansion" added $1.3 million, finishing 12th on the charts domestically in its sixth weekend. That brings the adaptation of Disney's beloved theme park attraction to $64.6 million domestically along with $35.6 million internationally for a grand total of $100.2 million.
As we can see, it took "Haunted Mansion" twice as long to barely squeak past that milestone following its very disappointing $24 million opening weekend at the end of July. In that way, "Blue Beetle" is coming out ahead, but it's not exactly an out-and-out victory. We're still looking at a DC superhero movie that had ambitions of starting a franchise. Given that many superhero movies over the last 20 years have posted opening weekend totals larger than that of this movie's entire gross so far, it hasn't exactly lived up to the burden of expectations.
Different levels of disappointment
For Disney, this represents one of the studio's high-profile disappointments for the years, of which there have been several. This was the Mouse House's latest attempt to turn a theme park attraction into a movie franchise, which is a dragon they've been chasing ever since "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" became a smash hit. But it's a strategy that has truly only worked once. Even "Haunted Mansion" has now failed twice, as Eddie Murphy starred in a 2003 version that also flopped, though not quite as hard.
Disney spent $157 million — before marketing — to produce this latest iteration. It's not even going to come close to breaking even theatrically, to put it mildly. After VOD revenue, Blu-ray sales, and whatever value it adds to Disney+ are factored in, the movie's losses will lessen but it's difficult to imagine this one getting close to breaking even on a reasonable timeline. On a long enough timeline, almost any movie can eventually become profitable, but that's not really what a studio aims for with something like this.
Disney wanted another franchise. Instead, they're left holding the bag with a sizable flop on their hands. Given that this summer's "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" ($382 million worldwide/$300 million budget) is arguably the studio's biggest flop since "John Carter," it was a rough summer for Disney.
Blue Beetle adds to DC's woes
For Warner Bros., it's a disappointment of a different sort. "Blue Beetle" was originally intended to go to HBO Max (now just Max) but the studio decided to pivot to a theatrical release. The film carries a budget in the $104 million range, making it cheap for a superhero movie, but still expensive. It's certainly not going to lose as much money as Disney is going to lose on "Haunted Mansion." Heck, after VOD and other revenue streams, it might eventually break even. It may not get to that point in theaters, but it's not going to be a total shipwreck for the studio.
Be that as it may, we're still looking at a theatrical bust. It's the third time this year that Warner Bros. has suffered in the DC Universe, with "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" and "The Flash" both bombing in spectacular fashion. In the case of "Fury of the Gods," we're talking about — without exaggeration – one of the biggest flops in the history of the superhero genre. $128 million worldwide on a $125 million budget isn't going to cut it. "The Flash" topping out at $268 million worldwide against a $200 million budget isn't much better. Is "Blue Beetle" as brutal as those? No. But it's not the outright hit WB needed to change the narrative for DC moving forward.
WB is rebooting the DC Universe under the leadership of DC Studios co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran. That begins, in earnest, with "Superman: Legacy" in 2025. Unfortunately, it appears audiences don't much care for DC right now outside of "The Batman." That adds tremendously to the pressure Gunn and Safran face with the looming reboot. It's an unenviable situation.
Both studios had lofty ambitions. Both studios suffered disappointments that carry larger implications. Both movies get to say they at least made $100 million at the box office, if nothing else.