My Posts on Blue Beetle's Box Office Performance (Collected)

During the run-up to and aftermath of the release of Blue Beetle I tracked the discussion of the movie's box office prospects, and then its actual theatrical performance, as well as the fallout therefrom. For convenience's sake I have gathered together the items (some of them fairly short) on this one page, in order of appearance and dated--while also updating the links from posts referencing them so that they all lead here.

7/23/23
How Will Blue Beetle Do? (A Note on the Boxoffice Pro's Tracking)
These days even the biggest movies from the bigger franchises are having a tough time getting audiences to the theaters--and smaller movies having a tougher time still. Thus Guardians of the Galaxy 3 disappoints (finishing up a fifth down from the gross of Guardians of the Galaxy 2 when we adjust for inflation), while Shazam 2 craters (this $100 million+ DCEU superhero movie finishing with $134 million taken in globally).

Blue Beetle was an originally straight-to-streaming release "upgraded" with a bigger budget in the wake of its studio's declining interest in costly streaming projects that saw them decide to bury a nearly complete Batgirl film rather than give it the same treatment.

Still, from the standpoint of resources invested and name recognition the movie was more Shazam than Guardians of the Galaxy (never mind Spider-Man).

All the same, catching Blue Beetle's trailer a while back I thought it at least promised a fast, flashy, fun summer movie. (Indeed, it made a better impression that way than the contemporaneous Captain Marvel 2 trailer.)

Was it possible that Blue Beetle would defy the odds? Not necessarily becoming a billion-dollar hit, but still being a meaningful success on a smaller scale?

Alas, to go by Boxoffice Pro's projection Blue Beetle will be lucky to do as well as Shazam! Fury of the Gods. Their analyst Shawn Robbins anticipates a $12-$17 million opening on the way to a $27-$55 million gross at the end of its domestic run.

Shazam 2, by contrast, opened with $30 million--far above the high end of the range projected for Blue Beetle--on its way to a $58 million gross even after its collapse in the second weekend.

Of course, Blue Beetle will not actually hit theaters for four weeks, and a lot can change in that period. We have seen many a movie's tracking-based prospects wither in that time frame (in fact this has happened again and again this year, perhaps most pointedly The Flash), but sometimes their prospects improve--with this weekend's Barbie an excellent example. (A month ago Boxoffice Pro was thinking the movie's first three days might take in as little as $55 million. Now the range they have in mind is two-and-a-half to three times that, $140-$175 million.) Still, whether or not the film lives up to this promise the more likely outcome is its confirming the impressions so many of superhero fatigue and the commercial pointlessness of putting out smaller films of that kind.

Expect an update on that during the coming weeks.

8/28/23
How is Blue Beetle Doing Ten Days into its Release?
The box office prospects of Blue Beetle from the start were fairly modest--the movie a straight-to-streaming project that, unlike its fellow straight-to-streaming DCEU project Batgirl, was upgraded for theatrical release rather than buried, and even after that no Guardians of the Galaxy 3 or The Flash were competitiveness at the summer box office was concerned. Moreover, to a degree that was almost certainly unanticipated when the decision to give Blue Beetle a theatrical release was made, superhero fatigue, franchise fatigue, and general "blockbuster" fatigue all bit hard in 2023--with Ant-Man 3 and Shazam 2 both proving early losers, and the flops just continuing to come through the summer with the latest installments of the Fast and Furious, Transformers, the DCEU, Indiana Jones and even Mission: Impossible.

The result was that the early tracking numbers for Blue Beetle looked paltry indeed--four weeks in advance of the movie's debut Boxoffice Pro projecting a $12-$17 million opening weekend on the way to a $27-$55 million gross over the fuller domestic run, numbers that would have been disappointing in regard to the mere opening day of a much-awaited superhero blockbuster pre-pandemic. Of course, things did look up after, with Boxoffice Pro's projection for Blue Beetle rising to $20-$27 million for the opening weekend and $45-$87 million for the fuller run by the August 10 reassessment. Proportionately a significant upward revision, it was still from a very low starting point—and even the high end of the range well short of the $100 million mark.

As it happened the film, with a gross in the upper limit of the range Boxoffice Pro envisaged for its opening weekend ($25 million), and displayed decent legs in its second weekend (with a mere 49 percent drop in its second weekend), has justified the improved projection--but not done much more than that. At the same time it has been no great sensation overseas (57 percent of the worldwide box office gross to date accounted for domestically).

The result is that it will have a tough time just making its money back--even after taking into account post-theatrical income. With $25 million collected on opening weekend and $46 million in the first ten days one can, given reasonable optimism about the pattern seen to date continuing, picture the movie tripling its opening weekend gross, or making two-thirds more money than it already has--which works out to a final domestic tally of $75 million or so by either calculation. Continuing to account for 57 percent of the global gross this suggests a worldwide take in the $130 million range. Should the film do a little better than this--actually make the $87 million Boxoffice Pro anticipated, and eventually match its domestic gross overseas--it would still have only $175 million collected.

Now consider the formula I have presented here on the basis of Deadline's recent data. The share of the gross that goes to the production comes to, perhaps, half--which works out to $65-$90 million in rentals. For a lower-grossing film like this it is not inconceivable that the home entertainment, TV, streaming income will match or even slightly exceed the theatrical rentals, so let us say generously that counting this in the movie better than doubles its theatrical rentals with a $140-$200 million take from all those sources.

Now consider what we know of what was spent--the reported production budget of $120 million. Counting in the costs of publicity, distribution and the rest of what is not strictly "production" we tend to get 2-3 times the outlay for the production, which works out to, let us say, $240-$360 million (unless the backers really skimped). The result is that even should the film do well within the parameters discussed here the project could be tens of millions in the hole--while the less bullish scenarios have the movie losing its backers a good deal more than tens of millions. Still, even in the worst-case scenario this movie is unlikely to be accounted a major flop in the year that has also seen The Flash and Indiana Jones 5.

9/25/23
How Has Blue Beetle Done?
Alongside the DCEU film The Flash Warner Bros. Discovery had another superhero film coming out this summer, Blue Beetle. It hit theaters in North America in August 18--and six weeks on has collected some $70 million. It has taken in an additional $53 million internationally at last check.

This works out to a grand total of $123 million.

This is, admittedly, a bit better than may have been anticipated for it--the North American component of the gross, indeed, exceeding the high end of Boxoffice Pro's mid-July expectations ($55 million). However, it is a long way from making the $100 million+ film profitable, even if one assumes commensurately strong earnings in streaming and other post-theatrical distribution--and thus also a long way from justifying the decision to "upgrade" what had originally been a straight-to-streaming project to a bigger budget and a theatrical release.

Notably this is in spite of the film seeming to be actually well-liked--rather better-liked, in fact, than the far more expensive and heavily promoted The Flash, to go by the Rotten Tomatoes scores (a critics' score of 79 vs. 63 for The Flash, an audience score of 92 vs. 83 for the other movie).

It seems at the very least more evidence of the difficulty of getting audiences to buy tickets generally--and the difficulty of getting them to do so in particular for superhero movies, especially as those features of a superhero film that may make it stand out are, alas, not the kind of thing that tidily fits into high concept marketing schemes.

10/25/23
The Decision to Go With a Theatrical Release for Blue Beetle, in Hindsight
Amid the collapse of the delusions about the profitability of streaming Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) found itself shifting course dramatically with two DC Comics-based superhero films it had originally intended to release to its MAX service, Batgirl and Blue Beetle. On the grounds that it was too costly to make economic sense anymore as a streaming project, and too "small" for theatrical release, the company's bosses decided to simply bury Batgirl, while "upgrading" Blue Beetle to a theatrical release with a bigger production budget and the associated backing. As it happened the movie seems to have got a decent reception from critics--and the few who saw it (such that it has a 92 percent Audience score on Rotten Tomatoes). However, the latter were not very numerous, with the movie's worldwide gross now standing below the $130 million mark.

Given what has been heard of the film's budget ($100 million+), what might be expected of the fuller expenditure (at least as much to distribute and promote it, and other claims on the revenue stream), between theatrical rentals and what the movie might make after its theatrical run from home entertainment, etc. (perhaps not doing more than matching that share of the ticket sales of $60 million or so), the backers could be out tens of millions.

As losses go this can seem trivial next to the hundreds of millions in losses the WBD may have suffered with The Flash. Still, it does raise the question of whether the company has done better putting the film out in theaters than simply finishing the movie on a lower budget and putting it out on streaming per the original plan.

Any thoughts on that, readers?