In an attempt to shave billions off the budget, Warner Bros. has had to pick and choose which titles it wants to market and how heavily it wants to promote them, but Blue Beetle wasn’t really left with a choice after the writers’ and actors’ strikes left the majority of key creatives without a say in the matter.
For every Barbie campaign that led to a billion-dollar windfall at the box office, there’s the unfortunate case of The Flash, which was effectively cut off at the knees by everybody hyping it up as one of the greatest comic book adaptations of all-time. Of course, it absolutely was not, and now ranks as an all-timer of a box office bomb.
Taking matters into their own hands, the Blue Beetle fandom – calling themselves the Battalion – have been single-handedly drumming up buzz and awareness for the incoming superhero origin story. As a result, projections for its opening weekend have nigh-on tripled from where they were just a couple of weeks back.
The early estimates forecast a three-day debut in the $12-17 million range, the lower end of which would rank as DC’s worst wide release in over 40 years. However, $30 million is now well within reach, and based on the fact that even the movie’s official social media accounts lay dormant before making their return with a meme about avocados, you’ve got to hand it to the fans first and foremost.
We know that Jaime Reyes will carry on as part of the DCU, but he might even avoid starring in a bomb, too.