Superhero movies seem to be at an influx point, bombing left and right these days, and it’s a wonderful sight to see.
The catastrophe that is the Warner Bros/DC collaboration may take yet another bad turn this weekend. Warners had enough confidence in “Blue Beetle” to greenlight it with a $120 million budget. It’s being released in two days time.
The embargo has now lifted on this latest DC movie and the reviews are mildly okay. A 62 on Metacritic, but a much friendlier 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. We’ll see if word of mouth can carry it forward at the box office.
According to Deadline, “Blue Beetle” is tracking for a $25-30 million opening weekend, which is far better than its earlier estimates, from just a few weeks ago, which were at around $12-17 million.
The movie will need to to overperform internationally to avoid the gloomy fate of the last three DC superhero flicks (Shazam 2, The Flash, Black Adam). Like many DCEU movies, ‘Beetle’ has had reshoots, but, here’s the kicker, THR reported that the filmmakers requested two additional days of filming this past February but were turned down by the studio.
“Blue Beetle” has to do with a college graduate (Xolo Maridueña) who returns to his hometown and is chosen to become a symbiotic host to an ancient alien relic that grants him a powerful exoskeleton armor.
I was invited to another ‘Beetle’ press screening tonight, but I just can’t push myself to go. I’m just so over these DC/Marvel movies. The best thing IndieWire’s David Ehrlich’s could say about this movie was that “hey, at least it’s better than “Black Adam?”
“Blue Beetle” is scheduled to be released in theaters on Friday.
I should warn you: based on everything I’ve heard, this teaser is a total misdirection. The movie is not at all what it’s being portrayed as here. In fact, most of the footage in the teaser comes from the first few minutes of the film.