Summary
- Blue Beetle narrowly surpasses Barbie at the box office, earning $25.4 million domestically and $18 million internationally.
- The film’s total worldwide earnings of $43.4 million are considered modest and may not guarantee a sequel.
- Despite the financial performance, director Ángel Manuel Soto remains hopeful for future Blue Beetle movies, citing support from James Gunn and the film’s potential for partnerships with other DC heroes.
Comic book movie outing Blue Beetle is the weekend’s big winner, but its early performance doesn’t necessarily ensure a sequel. The new superhero adventure from director Ángel Manuel Soto narrowly bested Barbie at the box office — barely. While the DC film did take the No. 1 spot with $25.4 million domestically, Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster made $21.5 million in its fifth weekend of release. And Soto knows that money will ultimately decide whether a Blue Beetle sequel ever sees the light of day. Soto said in an interview with Yahoo! Entertainment:
“The way the machine works, the [first] movie needs to make money for them to put more money in.”
Unfortunately, Blue Beetle didn’t fare nearly as well overseas. The Xolo Maridueña-led flick only brought in $18 million internationally, which gives Soto’s first foray in the world of DC a total of only $43.4 million worldwide. Soto said in the same interview:
But for us, we’ve always seen it that way… We love the story so much. We believe in the product so much. We believe in an actor so much. We couldn’t help but think about where his journey was going to go while we were creating this film… So, is it wish fulfillment? Are we calling it out to the universe? Sure.”
Will Blue Beetle Make Enough Money to Justify a Sequel?
Blue Beetle’s $43.4-million opening is just a drop in the deep bucket of movie-making expenditure when it comes to the film making a profit or just breaking even at the box office. Depending on the source, the budget for the DC project was somewhere between $104 million and $125 million. James Gunn has already gone on record as being a supporter of the superhero, and he also said that this version of the Blue Beetle is the first official character in the DCU. Soto addressed Gunn’s support, courtesy of Inverse:
“It was beautiful being able to do that and see that for James Gunn, this prologue, this first act of our saga is worthy of being canon for his superheroes so that he can embark into new adventures… I hope that means Blue Beetle is going to partner with other heroes, and I hope that means we get a Blue Beetle 2 and Blue Beetle 3.”
There’s never been any question in Soto’s mind that Blue Beetle was only a jumping-off point for more stories revolving around Jaime Reyes (Maridueña). And then there’s that mid-credits’ scene that, SPOILER, teases two more DC superheroes. Soto said in an earlier interview with Total Film:
“Our first movie, the way we wanted to do it, was always with the mentality that we wanted to do two more, at least. And taking the traditional three-act structure of a story, we wanted our first movie to practically be the first act of a saga.”
The money-making aspect isn’t looking too promising for Blue Beetle, though. Another DC title, The Flash opened back in June, and director Andy Muschietti’s film made $55 million over its opening weekend — only to be dubbed a box office fiasco. And Blue Beetle only did slightly better with audiences than The Flash.
Blue Beetle received a “B+” CinemaScore while The Flash’s “B” grade almost certainly indicated the film’s demise prior to its box office collapse. On Rotten Tomatoes, Blue Beetle has performed much better with an audience score of 92%, at the time of this writing. However, all the praise in the world won’t mean anything if Blue Beetle can’t make a decent go of it in theaters.
Blue Beetle is now playing in theaters.
