Legit super excited for this movie.
I don’t think this is going to make a lot of money, but it has a relatively (for a DC movie) small budget so if WB doesn’t blow out the marketing in a kneejerk reaction to The Flash bombing, they have a decent chance of being profitable.
Oh, ha, it’s the kid from Cobra Kai.
Oh no. Strike what I had written earlier. So this was modestly budgeted at $60-$80 million when it was supposed to be an HBO Max premiere exclusive. At some point, the WBD higher-ups decided this should go to the theater first and the budget increased to $120-$140 million. That’s mid-tier for a superhero movie, (the first Ant-Man had around the same budget) but…
It’s tracking to do about $15 million opening week which will never make it if the movie stays at that projection.
Blue Beetle seems is reviewing a lot better than I expected in terms of scores, but the text of the reviews is doing very little to make me want to see the movie.
Did anyone take one for the team?
Approx $43 million global opening box office. $25 million domestic, which was in line with predictions. Blue Beetle does get to say that it was the “#1 movie” for this weekend, barely beating Barbie, but it’s still a BO flop.
Is it? The Washington Post cites a $105M budget, and unless that doesn’t include advertising and that doubles its cost (unlikely, as I had never heard of it), a $43M opener sounds like a decent winner, especially once you get to pay-per view and whatnot.
The WaPo loved the film (3.5 of 4 stars), and they had a follow-on piece this morning about what an awesome super-hero movie it was.
The financials article speculates that the inclement weather in SoCal may have depressed turn-out… it’ll be interesting to see if the movie can actually avoid the ridiculous drop-offs that most super-hero movies seem to suffer week-on-week.
I’ll wait for it to hit HBO Max, but the reviews have me mildly curious.
Nah. Remember that box office is not 100% revenue to the studio and international theater take is worse per ticket on average than domestic. It’s why for most releases domestic BO is the thing studios really watch.
I haven’t seen it, but a comics-lovin’ friend of mine said it was “theater worthy”, “the music’s really good, too”, and, answering if other DC heroes were awkwardly shoehorned in, “let’s just say the legacy of Ted Kord is well represented and respected,” as was a mention of Dan Garrett, the Bronze Age Blue Beetle.
He also said that Peacekeeper was unfortunately not in it, which was too bad – apparently Christopher Smith, the Peacekeeper, was Jaime’s mentor in the comics. Further, he said that a John Cena cameo would have shown that the new James Gunn-led DC studios meant that “I don’t think Gunn is serious about keeping Blue Beetle, because if he was, he’d have sent Gunn’s most popular DC character to be in the movie somewhere.” Finally, he said that “it might also be worth seeing to help send the message that a Latin American superhero is worth supporting.”
I ought to try seeing it so I can come up with my opinion, but appreciated his opinion.
I’ve seen a lot of doom and gloom projections about this film, but I dunno; theaters generally take a lower percentage for the first week or so, and given this was originally pitched as a Max exclusive, I doubt there are many participations from the creators and cast. That probably will help the budget sheet later on. Given how aggressively the new brass at WB is licensing content - even when it’d make sense to land solely on Max - I wonder if this will ultimately just about break even.
Gonna go see it this weekend. Discerning friends said it was a fun time. (IE: Not groundbreaking, but worth a theater trip.)
Feel like it’s a good film to support.
I saw this movie tonight at the 10:30pm show—it was pretty good, maybe a little predictable but still fun—but I wanted to share what happened afterwards.
There were people sitting behind us who were laughing and cheering at the big jokes, and then they applauded when the movie was over…and after the credits were over, the applauded again. I stood up, and it was a Hispanic family sitting behind us. The oldest woman, either the mother or grandmother, asked us in a heavy accent, “Did you like it?”
Me: “Yeah, it was really good!”
Her: “Yeah it was so good! I cried so much, and I cheered so much…. It’s a really good movie!”
Me: “Yeah it was.”
Her: “I’m glad you liked it!”
Me: “I’m glad you liked it too!”
Her: “Have a good night!”
It may not seem like a lot to some of us, but representation really matters. Maybe she’s a big DC fan or something, but I bet the setting and the primarily Latinx cast made a big impact on how much she enjoyed the movie.
I hated this movie, it is everything that is now wrong with these films. Just dreadful. My 16 year old who I roped in to watch with me thought it was even worse and said he will never watch movies again with me if I pick something as bad as this.
Did they call it “mid” or was it worse than “mid”?
This is now on Max.
It’s … pretty OK, I guess. There are certainly far, far worse superhero movies out there. On the other hand, there are certainly far, far better ones as well. Even as a sucker for this particular sub-genre - average joe from the wrong side of the tracks gets superpowers - I don’t there’s any need to watch this unless you’ve already seen the Spiderverse movies, Ms. Marvel, and even the first Shazam, all of which do it better.
It occasionally flirts with doing something interesting … critiquing the “billionaires will save us” trope so common in superhero fiction, or making the hero into the damsel who needs to be rescued by the supporting cast instead of the other way round. But ultimately it falls back into familiar tropes, some of them verrry familiar by now - it’s clear the remit for this from Warners was, “Make us our own Iron Man.”
The movie does definitely show the signs of having been a made-for-streaming thing hastily promoted to a theatrical release. It feels like it’s been chopped and re-arranged multiple times, and the effects often look cheap (but then two scenes later you might get an effects shot that clearly cost a whole lot more.)
This wasn’t bad, but it was so formulaic as to be boring. Every note you expect it to hit, it hits, at the exact moment you expect it to. Dominic Toretto, sitting in the audience, nods his head sagely every time they say the word “family”.
The Beetle and the bad guy (who has a carapace and is named Carapax, get it?) have the same fight three times.
On the plus side, it has Guillermo from What We Do in the Shadows in it, and I did think what they did with Carapax in the end was actually kind of cool.