Whereas you might have been able to write off Shazam! Fury of the Gods as an anomaly seeing as the sequel to one of the DCU’s best-reviewed and most profitable installments ended up losing a fortune after tanking in theaters, The Flash making the franchise zero-for-two in 2023 is not ideal.
With a $55 million debut, the blockbuster praised by everyone from Tom Cruise and Stephen King to James Gunn and Jaden Smith severely fell below expectations, and a worldwide opening of $130 million in total is just as disastrous. The good news is that DC still has two major releases to come this year, but the bad news… is that DC still has two major releases to come this year.
If audiences are actively ignoring Fury of the Gods and The Flash, then what does that mean for Blue Beetle, which is based on a hero that doesn’t have the same kind of awareness and name recognition as the other two? We can only hope that rave reviews save it from failure, because the former HBO Max exclusive’s chances of success are not looking great right about now.
And what of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom? The opener remains the highest-grossing DC Comics adaptation of all-time, but the follow-up has been plagued by tales of extensive reshoots, exhaustive test screenings, and the belief that it doesn’t have a chance to reach anywhere near the same heights as its predecessor.
Of course, there’s an element of doom and gloom to such prognosticating, but looking at what’s happened so far this year, would anyone be surprised even in the slightest if both Blue Beetle and Aquaman 2 suffered an identical fate to either Fury of the Gods or The Flash?