Blue Beetle came out in the United States on August 18, by Warner Bros. Pictures. Blue Beetle made only $25 million its opening weekend, and $43 million worldwide. Even though there are a lot of bad articles about Blue Beetle, many who have watched Blue Beetle would say otherwise. It has a solid, 78% Rotten Tomatoes score and a great 92% audience score. After its third weekend in theaters, Blue Beetle had made a total of $58.5 million at the domestic box office and $104.4 million globally which is good but it was reported they had a $100 million budget which means they didn’t win a good amount of money. They had issues with having a wider audience as Blue Beetle faced the same DC issues as ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ and ‘The Flash’. Some say fans know there’s a new universe coming, but they’re confused about what that means right now, probably leading to unsuccessful releases for DC movies in 2023.
An article reporting on Blue Beetle by KvotheG on Reddit stated “Out of all the recent DC films that came out recently, Blue Beetle was my favorite. It was GOOD. A solid 8/10. A fun film that is unfortunately doing poorly at the box office, and it doesn’t deserve those numbers. I wish it was doing better because I want a sequel, and unfortunately, Hollywood only sees numbers, so if this movie doesn’t make enough money, then there won’t be any sequel.” If there are many good reviews on the movie Blue Beetle why wasn’t it a success like other movies in theaters that include Barbie receiving 88% rotten tomatoes, Oppenheimer receiving 93%, and The Nun II with 52% while these three movies are still in theaters? Many ask, does this have to do with racism, the fact that it’s a DC movie, or something else?
An article dedicated to talking about the reasons Blue Beetle failed at the box office By Sarnajit Bala says its unsuccessfulness can be based on its release in August which was considered the ‘dump month’ stating “The picture could not draw more significant audiences or take advantage of the popularity of the prime moviegoing seasons due to its lousy release timing.” In the article, she also states “It’s possible that the adverse reactions to recent DC films like ‘The Flash’ and ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ impacted how people felt about this movie. In the aftermath of the momentous Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, DC struggled to establish itself, which affected fans’ expectations for the franchise’s offerings.” this can support the fact that people didn’t give Blue Beetle a fair chance since it’s a Dc movie. There are many people who would say the movie wasn’t a success because of racism as it was directed by Ángel Manuel Soto and acted out by Latin American actors including Goerge Lopez, Raoul Trujillo, and Ramario Xolo Ramirez who plays Blue Beetle. In an article on Reddit by Siddhika Prajapati they wrote “The Blue Beetle’s declining popularity in the Western market, according to an industry expert, is reportedly caused by cultural and demographic differences. As anticipated, the Latinos who did attend led the group with 38% of the total attendees. They gave the movie a strong 90% rating, which, if it had been the general consensus, would have resulted in an A CinemaScore.” meaning that the Latin American audience enjoyed the movie giving it a 90% rating, they also stated “The issue was that the movie’s cultural references did not connect as well with the other communities, which were represented by 27% of the audience who were Caucasians, and gave the film a 75% positive rating.” This told us that 27% of the non-Latin audience gave a lower rating because they didn’t relate to the movie. These ratings caused the audience rating to drop to 84% positive with 65% recommending it.
Knowing all of this information, we know that the majority of the reasons Blue Beetle wasn’t a success was because it was a DC movie and wasn’t given a chance to get a fair rating, as well as not targeting the right audience that can feel connected to the movie. I recently watched the movie Blue Beetle with my sister and she loved it saying it was relatable in some aspects of our family and the jokes were funny I would like to point out that we watched it in Spanish which can make the jokes sound better. I also really enjoyed the movie, it was thrilling and I liked the jokes. I would definitely recommend watching Blue Beetle and giving it a fair review without being influenced by the feedback of others.
Carlos Alvarado • Jan 31, 2024 at 12:03 pm
This article is significant because it discusses racism and how the Blue Beetles’ success in the film industry is impacted by it. In this article, Julissa Perez the author provides us with perspectives from other individuals regarding how racism impacted this film, saying “There are many people who would say the movie wasn’t a success because of racism as it was directed by Ángel Manuel Soto and acted out by Latin American actors”. This shows that the animosity the actors faced simply for being Latin Americans affected the success of the film. The author presents this article to show a controversial topic that not everyone is brave enough to talk about. In conclusion, Julissa Perez made lots of good points and provided lots of evidence to support her claim.
Justin Delatorre • Jan 31, 2024 at 11:57 am
This article is important because it asks the question if racism was the reason the blue beetle movie did so badly. An example of this is when the author Anabella Grimaldo says “There are many people who would say the movie wasn’t a success because of racism as it was directed by Ángel Manuel Soto and acted out by Latin American actors including Goerge Lopez, Raoul Trujillo, and Ramario Xolo Ramirez who plays Blue Beetle.” This shows that people believe the movie did not do good when it came out in theaters because of the racism that was in the movie. The author wants to show that the movie did not do good because of the director Angel Manuel Soto and the casting that he chose for the movie since people found it racist because of the cultural and demographic differences. In conclusion people believe that racism due to bad casting was the reason blue beetle did not do good in theaters.
Juan • Jan 31, 2024 at 11:51 am
This article is important because it shows why the movie flopped and some ideas that people have about it. For example, Julissa Perez says “This told us that 27% of the non-Latin audience gave a lower rating because they didn’t relate to the movie. These ratings caused the audience rating to drop to 84% positive with 65% recommending it.”. One can see from this that because people do not relate to the small population of Latinos, they cannot fully provide the economic aspect of the movie and need other people to see but do not connect to it. The author wants the reader to understand the reason that the movie was not necessarily that people were racist but that they couldn’t connect with it. In conclusion, the movie did not flop due to racism but many people could not connect with the story it was telling because it was not about their culture.
nathan • Jan 30, 2024 at 12:03 pm
This article is important because it is talking about racism and how it’s affecting the Blue Beetles’ success in the movie industry. In this article the author, Julissa gives us other people’s take on why racism affected this movie by saying “There are many people who would say the movie wasn’t a success because of racism as it was directed by Ángel Manuel Soto and acted out by Latin American actors”. For this reason I would agree with the author due to all the hate that the actors got for being Latin American. In addition this article brings out a controversial topic, which not everyone is brave enough to talk about. In conclusion Julissa Perez really gives good points to why she thinks the movie was unsuccessful.
Valeria Torres • Nov 3, 2023 at 1:15 pm
This was amazing and I learned much information about the film, also enjoyed reading it, It was very enjoyable.