Blue Beetle Dethrones Barbie At The Box Office With $25 Million Opening Weekend

After four uninterrupted weekends and almost an entire month as the No. 1 movie at the domestic box office, Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" has finally been bumped down to second place by the arrival of a plucky young hero in a super-suit. "Blue Beetle," directed by Ángel Manuel Soto and starring Xolo Maridueña ("Cobra Kai") in the title role, is the third of four DC Universe movies releasing in 2023, and is on track for a $25-27 million opening weekend after grossing $10 million on Friday (including Thursday previews), according to The Hollywood Reporter. 

That's a smaller opening weekend than "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" ($30.1 million), "The Flash" ($55 million), or last year's "Black Adam" ($67 million), though "Blue Beetle" does also have the smallest budget out of all of those movies at $104 million. The film was originally developed as a direct-to-streaming release for HBO Max (since rebranded as simply "Max"), but Soto told The Hollywood Reporter that producer Zev Foreman "always intended it to be a theatrical release," and that the two of them "wouldn't take no for an answer."

Though that victory was won, and Warner Bros. ultimately decided on a theatrical release, "Blue Beetle" is in a tough position, arriving at a time when superhero movies appear to be fading out of fashion. DC Studios is prepping a revamp of the DC Universe under co-CEOs Peter Safran and James Gunn, and "Blue Beetle" is a project left over from the DC Extended Universe era, which struggled to consistently land box office hits even during the height of superhero fever. This latest comic book outing won't be helped by a middling B+ CinemaScore from audience polling and mixed reviews from critics. It missed out on getting a boost at Comic-Con 2023, since Warner Bros. (like most studios) opted out this year due to the ongoing Hollywood strikes — which also meant that the stars of "Blue Beetle" were unable to promote the movie at the premiere.

Despite a smaller start at the domestic box office than the similarly-budgeted "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" (which reportedly cost $125 million to produce), "Blue Beetle" does have a shot at outpacing the Zachary Levi-led sequel in the long run. "Fury of the Gods" suffered a precipitous 69 percent drop in its second weekend at the box office and continued on a rapid downhill slide from there, in part due to facing competition from "John Wick: Chapter 4" after a week in theaters, and "Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" a week later. 

"Blue Beetle" will have to try and hold its own next weekend against "Gran Turismo," which could court similar audiences with its PG-13 rating and broadly similar storyline of a young man suddenly getting a wild opportunity. But looking beyond that, September's schedule is mostly dominated by R-rated action movies ("The Equalizer 3," "Expand4bles") and horror movies ("The Nun II," "Saw X"), and "Blue Beetle" is the only superhero offering in town until "The Marvels" arrives in November.

The primarily Hispanic cast and authentic Mexican cultural identity in "Blue Beetle" are an asset at the box office; there's a strong moviegoing tradition among Hispanic audiences, who make up around 19 percent of the US population but around 30 percent of box office ticket sales. According to exit polling by PostTrak (via THR), 40 percent of ticket buyers for "Blue Beetle" were Latino.

Even if "Blue Beetle" does surpass the $133 million worldwide gross of "Shazam! Fury of the Gods," it will still have a long way to go before hitting its break-even point, which we estimate to be in the region of $250 million. Still, with original content exclusive to streaming services proving to be a bit of a money pit, the theatrical release for "Blue Beetle" is nonetheless likely to leave Warner Bros. Discovery in a better position than if the movie had simply been dumped straight to Max.