Blue Beetle is Almost DC’s Worst Opening Weekend Box Office in a Decade

Blue Beetle‘s soft opening at the box office, but as a movie initially designed as a streaming exclusive for HBO Max (now just “Max”) how should its box office success be measured? Blue Beetle is earning great reviews and is one of the highest-scoring superhero movies on Rotten Tomatoes in 2023, but the strong early buzz from critics didn’t bring huge crowds for the movie’s opening weekend.

Blue Beetle was originally greenlit as an HBO Max streaming movie and wasn’t supposed to even release in theaters, but after Discovery’s acquisition of Warner Bros. there was a strategic shift back to a big screen focus. This shift resulted in the cancelation of another DC streaming movie, Batgirl, which reportedly wasn’t seen as a big enough spectacle for theaters, while Blue Beetle remained in production with a new plan to release it on the big screen.

Blue Beetle’s Opening Weekend Box Office is Almost The Lowest For a DC Movie In Over a Decade

Blue Beetle debuted to a meager $25.4 million box office haul in its opening weekend, which is lower than every single live-action DC movie opening weekend other than the mid-pandemic opening Wonder Woman 1984 in 2020. Prior to the pandemic, the last time a DC Comics movie opened that low was Red 2 in 2013 or Red in 2010, although Red belongs to DC’s Wildstorm imprint. Going even farther back to Jonah Hex‘s $5.4 million opening in 2010 is the last time a proper DC Comics movie opened lower than Blue Beetle, excluding pandemic exceptions.

Does Blue Beetle’s Box Office Even Matter to Warner Bros. and DC?

In a world where Batgirl is deemed to be more valuable to Warner Bros. as a tax write-off than actually selling tickets, how should the financial success of a movie like Blue Beetle be judged? How much revenue would it have generated for Warner Bros. if it were released on Max as planned compared to its $25.4 million opening weekend box office? The movie will surely struggle to make back its $104 million budget, but if the decision to put it in theaters instead of on streaming was merely a means to recoup more than it would have on streaming, then Warner Bros. could very well see this as a win.

The lack of transparency around streaming data, one issue at the heart of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, makes it impossible to know the value any given movie or show brings on streaming. With traditional television or box office metrics, the revenue generated by any given release is far more public information, so whether Blue Beetle‘s $25.4 million box office opening is truly a bigger win for DC and WB than if it had released on streaming will remain a mystery. Regardless, James Gunn and Peter Safran clearly have a long way to go in reviving the box office of the DC brand with Superman: Legacy in 2025.