On August 18th, 2023, the 15th movie of the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), Blue Beetle, was released in theaters. The movie had the second-worst opening for a DCEU movie,only making $113.9 million dollars after 3 weeks. Blue Beetle scored 91% on Rotten Tomatoes for the audience score and 78% for the critic score, which is higher than average. Even with the influx of positive reviews, Blue Beetle will likely lose money. A loss of money at the box office is nothing new for DC especially with, The Flash and Shazam! Fury of the Gods managing only meager profits this year.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods hit theaters on March 17, 2023 and was the lowest-grossing DCEU movie of all time, making only $133.8 million through its whole theatrical run. It was a bit of a surprise that this movie did this badly considering it was a sequel to Shazam!, a movie that many loved. The likely reason this movie performed so terribly was because it is simply just an average movie. It received a 49% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, which is considered “rotten.” The more superhero movies are released each year, the more they start to have less of an impact. Recently, the quality of movies has dropped, and movies are released on streaming services within months of their theater premieres, so for some, there is no reason to see a movie in theaters.
The Flash hit theaters during the summer, and many people had high hopes, with some critics saying it would be one of the best comic book movies to date. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The computer generated imagery (CGI) was a big talking point about this movie, and it is truly bad. There are scenes where there are two of the same character on screen at one time, resulting in one of the faces appearing distorted. This was another mediocre movie that wasn’t exactly special. It honestly is surprising this movie came out with all the controversy behind it. The lead actor, Ezra Miller, has been accused of kidnapping a minor and assault multiple times; different directors left the project for this reason.
Later this year, Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom will be released, and it should be interesting to see how well it performs in the box office considering the hefty profit made by the first Aquaman.The chances are slim to none that the movie hits the $1 billion mark, and yet it could be the highest-grossing DCEU movie of the year. It has not been announced if Amber Heard will be in it but, if she is, it could hurt the box office numbers due to her controversial lawsuit with famous actor Johnny Depp. There is a possibility this movie will not be released this year because of how terrible of a year DC has had, and how terrible some critics have said this movie is already.
A big reason as to why the DCEU has performed so terribly this year is because James Gunn, famously known for the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, is partnering with DC to revamp their extended universe and it will be called the “DCU, so whatever happened in all of these movies means nothing, and doesn’t lead to anything in the future within the lore of the universe. A movie like The Flash did nothing to clear anything up, and by the time the credits rolled it felt incomplete and did not properly close out the story.
DC itself has had some big box office hits, most of which are outside of the DCEU. Their highest-grossing movie is The Dark Knight Rises, and is unrelated to the other DCEU movies. Another movie that is not related to the DCEU is The Joker which is now the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time. The Joker, The Dark Knight trilogy, and The Batman are some of DC’s best movies, garnering large profits in the box office, yet all of them are, conveniently, completely separate from the DCEU and fall into their own cinematic universes.
HBO Max and DC have a partnership that allows DC movies to come out on their service within 3-4 months of their theatrical release. With movie-goers getting more disruptive during films and the cost of living getting more expensive, people would rather just wait a couple of months and watch it in the comfort of their own home. In this day and age, with so many superhero movies and TV shows coming out each year, a movie has to be different from everything else being done, and the DCEU has not been doing that.
