On the plus side, Blue Beetle did well enough to dethrone Barbie, but on the minus side, it had one of the worse openings for a DC movie with $25.4 million, even lower than the flop Shazam!: Fury of the Gods which opened with $30.5M in March. (But still better than Wonder Woman 1984, although that came out during the height of the pandemic and was concurrently released on HBO Max.) More recently, The Flash opened with $55.1M in June and that was also considered a bomb. This does not bode well for Aquaman 2, which rounds out the current DCEU this Christmas.
Mother Nature had a hand in Blue Beetle‘s underperformance, with the West Coast being threatened by Tropical Storm Hilary. California has a huge Latinx community, and this is the first major superhero movie featuring a Latino lead. The storm kept a lot of that audience away. Also, keep in mind the WGA and SAG strikes are still going on, so the cast — which includes George Lopez and Cobra Kai‘s Xolo Maridueña — was unable to promote the movie. Reportedly, Warner Bros. also backed off from showcasing it at SDCC.
Like most of the recent DC movies, the reaction to Blue Beetle isn’t bad. It has a B+ from overall exiting audiences via CinemaScore, with those under 18 giving it an A. Its Rotten Tomatoes audience score is pretty great at 92%, although its critics Tomatometer score is much lower at 76%. That’s not very good, but it’s not awful.
In comparison, The Flash got a 67% RT score and 86% audience score, with a B CinemaScore. Shazam!: Fury of the Gods got a 53% RT score, 88% audience score, and a B+ CinemaScore. Black Adam‘s critical RT score was a terrible 41%, but audiences liked it a lot better with a 90%, which is just slightly lower than Blue Beetle, but its overall CinemaScore was slightly higher with a B+.
The rest of the Top Five includes Barbie, which is still doing quite well, earning an additional $21.5M, and Oppenheimer, which generated an impressive $10.6M. Both halves of Barbenheimer are still making double digits in their fifth weeks, so having taken on stiff competition is mind-blowing!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem lands at #4 with $8.4M.
This week’s other major new release, the raunchy R-rated comedy Strays, flopped with $8.3M to land at #5. This follows the bombing of another raunchy R-rated comedy, Joy Ride, earlier this summer. That one didn’t even crack the Top Five, but it made more than Strays, with a $9.5M opening.
Once again, this may have been a victim of the SAG strike, as the voice cast, headed up by Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx, was not able to promote the picture. (Coincidentally, What We Do in the Shadows‘ Harvey Guillén provides a voice in Strays and has a role in Blue Beetle. So, he’s having a moment.)
Here are the numbers:
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- Blue Beetle (Warner Bros.) – 3-day $25.4M/ Wk 1
- Barbie (Warner Bros.) – 3-day $21.5M/ Total $567.2M/ Wk 5
- Oppenheimer (Universal) – 3-day $10.6M/ Total $285.2M/ Wk 5
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Paramount) – 3-day $8.4M/ Total $88.1M/ Wk 3
- Strays (Universal) – 3-day $8.3M/ Wk 1
Opening next weekend is the video game adaptation Gran Turismo. The cast that won’t be able to promote it includes David Harbour, Orlando Bloom, and Djimon Hounsou. Its RT critical score is pretty bad at 60% based on 104 reviews, but its audience score, based on over 250 reactions, is a spectacular 98%! Keep in mind, RT requires its audience reviewers to be certified and provide proof that they have actually seen the film in question. This isn’t whatever the opposite of review bombing is. These are real reactions!
Will that buzz be enough to allow Gran Turismo to take the top spot? Will Blue Beetle manage to hang on due to good word of mouth? Or will Barbie reclaim the throne? Check back next week to find out!
