The Big Picture
- Blue Beetle struggled at the global box office but finally surpassed $100 million worldwide, raising doubts about the brand’s future success.
- The superhero movie stars Xolo Maridueña as the titular hero and was directed by Ángel Manuel Soto.
- Despite its financial shortcomings, Blue Beetle received positive reviews from critics and audiences, leaving questions about the character’s role in the future of the DC Universe.
After a couple of weeks of struggling to lift its box office record off the ground, Blue Beetle has managed to earn more than $100 million at the worldwide box office. This weekend, the latest installment in the DCEU gathered around $5 million from theaters located all over the world, finally passing the significant mark, earning $101.9 million through Sunday. Due to its powerful budget, it looks like the action movie starring Xolo Maridueña as a new superhero won’t turn out to be a success, leaving the prestige of the brand into question.
Ever since Blue Beetle started its run with a disappointing $25 million opening weekend, it was evident that audiences weren’t showing up for Jaime Reyes’ (Maridueña) origin story as much as similar tales that have premiered during the last decade. In the weeks since, not even the international box office has been able to help Blue Beetle, as the current iteration of the DC Extended Universe will come to an end later this year, when Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom swims towards the big screen. Hopefully, the future of the brand can look brighter than what it’s had to face over the past couple of years.
In the origin story directed by Ángel Manuel Soto, Jaime Reyes recently graduated from college, and he’s looking for a job that can allow him to help his family find a new home. However, Kord Industries is looking to remove them from their land in order to develop a construction project. Looking to fix things immediately, Reyes decides to use the opportunity Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine) offers to him during the fateful encounter where they met, leading him to the journey that would turn him into a skilled hero.
A Villain Without Super Powers
The main antagonist of Jaime’s first adventure was Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), Jenny’s aunt and the person in charge of the wealthy technological company. The executive wanted to use her resources to develop military weapons, while Jenny believed the legacy of her family should have nothing to do with using their money to end the lives of people. Their ideological differences would lead them to a personal war, with Jaime stuck in the middle of it because of his attachment to the alien piece of technology Kord Industries found during the first act of the movie.
Despite its poor box office turn out, Blue Beetle‘s story impressed both critics and audiences, earning a 78% critic score and 92% audience score on the review aggregate site, Rotten Tomatoes. It remains to be seen what role Jaime Reyes and Blue Beetle superhero alter ego will play, if any, in James Gunn and Peter Safran‘s budding DCU.
