‘Blue Beetle’ Is the Latest DC Flop, Here’s Why

Since ‘Blue Beetle’ was released, the movie has struggled to make a profit as this high-budget superhero film from the DCEU is looking to find the traction it needs to finally break the curse surrounding the DCEU over its last three movies. Nevertheless, as of this writing, the film has only made around $25 million since its release, and people are wondering why such a well-made movie struggled out of the gate. So, why is ‘Blue Beetle’ set to become a flop?

‘Blue Beetle’ is set to become the latest DC flop because it is still facing competition from ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ one month after the release of those films. On top of that, people are not inclined to watch a movie that has characters with futures that are unsure in James Gunn’s DCU.

Arguably, the biggest reason why the DCEU movies have been failing is the fact that there is no clear future for the characters of these movies. There is no reason for fans to get invested in films that aren’t even going to have any sort of continuity whatsoever. In that regard, ‘Blue Beetle’ suffered the same problem that its predecessors faced. So, with that said, let’s look into why ‘Blue Beetle’ is set to become a flop.

Superhero movie overdose

Since the early part of the 2010s, it became clear that superhero movies were on their way to dominating the box office. We’ve seen plenty of MCU movies dominating the box office and earning millions of dollars in the international box office. The DCEU, of course, saw its fair share of success when the likes of ‘Wonder Woman,’ ‘Aquaman,’ and ‘Batman v Superman’ saw their fair share of success at the box office.

The problem, however, is that the superhero movie market has become quite saturated already, especially with theaters shoving moviegoers with superhero movie after superhero movie. Of course, no superhero movie has reached the same kind of success and hype that ‘Avengers: Endgame’ reached, and that means that the hype of the other movies has died down a bit, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe for nearly three years.

Because of that, moviegoers are now looking for something else to watch, as it is clear that superhero movies aren’t always going to dominate the box office. For instance, ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ itself is a billion-dollar success. The same can be said about the recent ‘Barbie’ movie that dominated the box office for nearly a month. And that means that superhero movies, despite their success over the last ten or so years, have already oversaturated themselves as far as moviegoers are concerned.

This could explain why ‘Blue Beetle,’ who was never even the most popular superhero in DC’s lineup of superheroes, hasn’t had the same kind of success that other superhero movies were able to experience. Of course, ‘Blue Beetle’ is so much better than the last few releases from DC, and it becomes confusing why moviegoers aren’t willing to give the film a chance.

The ‘Barbenheimer’ competition

There’s also the fact that ‘Blue Beetle’ was released just around a month after the worldwide phenomenon called ‘Barbenheimer,’ which was a doubleheader involving two different movies that are said to be polar opposites of one another. The first movie is the ‘Barbie’ film, which is a huge success as it has surpassed a billion dollars already. Meanwhile, the second movie is ‘Oppenheimer,’ which is also nearing a billion dollars but might not reach that mark.

Released simultaneously, these two movies combined to create the ‘Barbenheimer’ fever that had fans watching both of these movies as part of the overall experience of hopping from one movie theater to another to see two entirely different films.

While it has been a month since ‘Barbenheimer’ was released, ‘Blue Beetle’ is still facing stiff competition because many people who may have watched ‘Barbie’ or ‘Oppenheimer’ first are yet to see the second part of the doubleheader. As such, ‘Blue Beetle’ competed with two movies already at the tail-end of their hype. And that means that some people opted to watch either or both ‘Barbie’ or/and ‘Oppenheimer’ before giving ‘Blue Beetle’ a chance.

The good thing, however, is that ‘Blue Beetle’ was released when the ‘Barbenheimer’ fever had already gone down. That explains why ‘Blue Beetle’ has become the number one movie at the box office, finally dethroning ‘Barbie.’ But while that may be true, it still faces problems in relation to its traction as it still had to compete with ‘Barbenheimer’ during its opening weekend.

DC’s unclear future

Arguably the biggest reason why people are not watching ‘Blue Beetle’ despite the positive reviews is the fact that the DC film universe has an unsure future. Since the release of ‘Black Adam,’ which itself wasn’t even able to break the box office, DC movies have been suffering at the box office because it was announced that James Gunn was rebooting the entire DC film franchise.

Gunn’s DCU will not have its first film until 2025, which means that all of the DC movies that will be released before that year are not part of that universe. This means that ‘Blue Beetle’ isn’t part of Gunn’s DCU, even though the new DC film universe boss actually loved the film.

In that regard, fans know that it would be a waste of time and money to watch a film with an unsure future. This is one of the reasons why ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ flopped at the box office as fans were still trying to get over the fact that none of the DC movies will matter as far as Gunn’s reboot is concerned.

It’s already a problem that ‘Blue Beetle’ isn’t at the level of the other Justice League members in terms of popularity. But the fact that there’s a good chance that this movie won’t even become part of the DCU is a bigger problem. The only silver lining here is that James Gunn loved the movie and will probably include the ‘Blue Beetle’ characters and actors in a future installment under his rebooted DCU banner.

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