It’s unfortunate that DC movies have been suffering from poor box office numbers lately. Black Adam made nearly $400 million at the box office but still wasn’t enough to guarantee a sequel. Also, the Shazam franchise's future is in jeopardy since the sequel only making $30.5 million at the opening weekend box office when it was expected to make $35-40 million. The latest DC movie Blue Beetle has sadly joined the ranks of poor box office numbers, but Warner Bros.’s boss blames Tropical Storm Hilary for those disappointing results.
CBS News says that Tropical Storm Hilary is the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years. With Los Angeles being the top market for DC’s Blue Beetle, they were hit with a series of rain, mudslides, floods, and rock slides during the movie’s opening weekend. Given all of the weather turmoil the state has faced, Warner Bros. Studios posted gave a response that's circulating on Twitter that they blame the storm for why Blue Beetle didn’t have a big box office opening.
The storm's impact is anticipated to be significant, particularly in Southern California where the film is over‐indexing.
Blue Beetle may have topped Barbie at the weekend box office, but the numbers are still a letdown. Making $25.4 million in its first three days, it’s considered the least money made by a DC Extended Universe theatrical movie. That number is smaller than Shazam! Fury of the Gods did in its weekend debut of $30.1 million. Variety stated that this superhero movie has “one of the softest starts in the history of the DC Cinematic Universe” as it only made $10 million on its first day. As it’s currently at a global box office number of $43.6 million, that doesn’t even come close to its $104 million budget. As Blue Beetle has only been out for four days, hopefully some luck comes to DCEU’s 14th installment in the upcoming weeks.
It’s incredibly disappointing that Blue Beetle is not meeting box office expectations when you think about its milestone for having a major superhero be of Hispanic descent. Its superhero lead Xolo Maridueña has expressed the movie’s importance of Latin representation in the DCEU with his first movie showing something we haven’t seen before on the big screen- a Latino superhero. Fans were pumped about the idea of seeing the 22-year-old actor wearing his cool insect-like armor after seeing his kick-ass moves in Netflix’s Cobra Kai. But while Warner Bros. was feeling the box office pressure due to its recent flops, Maridueña said he doesn’t want to “be a prisoner to the numbers.”
So, Tropical Storm Hilary could be a contributing factor to why Blue Beetle is not doing well at the box office. But, what have the critics been saying about the movie? First reactions from fans of the new DCEU film have called it fun and entertaining with a successful introduction of Maridueña’s character, Jaime Reyes. On the other hand, critics have a more mixed reaction. While they see the movie as trying to be different in terms of Latin representation, they feel like Blue Beetle is recycling a lot of elements we’re already familiar with from other DC and Marvel films. While Tropical Storm Hilary is not helping with the numbers, I’m sure the critical reviews could also be hurting box office chances too.
Warner Bros. believes that Tropical Storm Hilary is to blame for the low box office numbers of Blue Beetle. If you’re in a safe area away from the dangers of this storm, this 2023 movie release is in theaters now.
