Blue Beetle

[OrlandoGuy]

All I know is that he contradicted himself like 5 times and DC fans are MAD! lol
This is serious business. The future of the entire DC franchise is at stake here lol.
Technically I love James Gunn and I never cared much for the snyderverse. So I'm happy with him taking over DC. But, not only is this movie flopping harder than Flash, but everyone is getting mad at Gunn now.

I never understood the James Gunn hire. He’s a visionary creative I guess (if you count a good taste in music and penchant for weird characters visionary) but I don’t know how that qualifies him to run a studio. It’s not like he’s some business genius because Guardians did well, nothing he’s been attached to without the Marvel tag next to it has proven commercially viable. And look, I loved his Suicide Squad but nothing about the way that was written, produced, etc. screams, “this is a guy who understands Hollywood.”

I’m very interested in his Superman movie because for it to work, somethings gonna have to give, be it his offbeat creative voice or general audience’s expectation for a straight-laced epic-style action movie. Based on how he’s socialized his vision for the DCU so far, I don’t have faith he’ll find the right compromise between his vision and the audience’s.

 

[Nick]

I don't even know if it's just a DC problem right now either. The Marvels is going to bomb BADLY.

Part of it is the lack of ability to promote movies (Ezra Miller’s issues really hurt The Flash in that way and then there’s just movies that both DC and Marvel are putting out like Shazam 2, Blue Beetle, The Marvels, and Ant-Man 3 (with DC specifically because the DCEU is dead) that people just don’t care about.

I never understood the James Gunn hire. He’s a visionary creative I guess (if you count a good taste in music and penchant for weird characters visionary) but I don’t know how that qualifies him to run a studio. It’s not like he’s some business genius because Guardians did well, nothing he’s been attached to without the Marvel tag next to it has proven commercially viable. And look, I loved his Suicide Squad but nothing about the way that was written, produced, etc. screams, “this is a guy who understands Hollywood.”

I’m very interested in his Superman movie because for it to work, somethings gonna have to give, be it his offbeat creative voice or general audience’s expectation for a straight-laced epic-style action movie. Based on how he’s socialized his vision for the DCU so far, I don’t have faith he’ll find the right compromise between his vision and the audience’s.

Gunn is the Walt to Peter Safran’s Roy.

 

[Lucky Planet]

I never understood the James Gunn hire. He’s a visionary creative I guess (if you count a good taste in music and penchant for weird characters visionary) but I don’t know how that qualifies him to run a studio. It’s not like he’s some business genius because Guardians did well, nothing he’s been attached to without the Marvel tag next to it has proven commercially viable. And look, I loved his Suicide Squad but nothing about the way that was written, produced, etc. screams, “this is a guy who understands Hollywood.”

I’m very interested in his Superman movie because for it to work, somethings gonna have to give, be it his offbeat creative voice or general audience’s expectation for a straight-laced epic-style action movie. Based on how he’s socialized his vision for the DCU so far, I don’t have faith he’ll find the right compromise between his vision and the audience’s.

I'm really, extremely interested in what he does with superman. I've never really liked Superman as much as batman so I'm really super curious lol.

I guess it comes down to James Gunn being the only one that wanted to accept the job. Who knows what other people were offered DC and said no.
He's got a pretty good record overall in his career so I can see why.
He's never had like a really awful movie and he probably had a good plan for DC. but also. Like I said, no one else wanted it lol.

Part of it is the lack of ability to promote movies (Ezra Miller’s issues really hurt The Flash in that way and then there’s just movies that both DC and Marvel are putting out like Shazam 2, Blue Beetle, The Marvels, and Ant-Man 3 (with DC specifically because the DCEU is dead) that people just don’t care about.


Gunn is the Walt to Peter Safran’s Roy.

I feel like between the pandemic and also after ant man 3 and Thor love and thunder I feel like everyone got burned out. I know we are talking about DC. But I feel like after ant man and Thor, everyone felt almost bullied by superhero movies lol. I could see the shift.

 

[Nick]

I'm really, extremely interested in what he does with superman. I've never really liked Superman as much as batman so I'm really super curious lol.

I guess it comes down to James Gunn being the only one that wanted to accept the job. Who knows what other people were offered DC and said no.
He's got a pretty good record overall in his career so I can see why.
He's never had like a really awful movie and he probably had a good plan for DC. but also. Like I said, no one else wanted it lol.


I feel like between the pandemic and also after ant man 3 and Thor love and thunder I feel like everyone got burned out. I know we are talking about DC. But I feel like after ant man and Thor, everyone felt almost bullied by superhero movies lol. I could see the shift.

I will never buy into "comic book fatigue" as I don't think it exists. What has been happening is a slew of mediocre to bad movies/shows all within a very short period of time. GotG 3 came out not long after Quantumania and did as well or better than every other GOTG movie before it with a 6 year break between movies.

I think the "shift" has been post-pandemic, people are watching their wallets more closely and they aren't just blindly going to see every comic book film. They are waiting to see reviews and word of mouth on a movie to know if a movie is worth spending their money on it to see it in theaters or if they should just wait until theaters.

If the quality is there, people will show up most of the time for comic book movies, specifically with Marvel. DC is in a bit of a different predicament where they have a million problems at once. Marvel has quality control issues, but they haven't fully really their audience yet like DC sort of has. Even the low amount that Quantumania brought in for example rivals the best Worldwide totals DCEU has put up since post-Aquaman.

 

[Lucky Planet]

Watched blue bettle.....
So the first half is very good. Super charming character. Charming family. Very funny. Great dialogue. You can take out the super hero elements and you still have a strong movie. Every family member is funny. Good set up. Really great lead actor.

Second half. Generic, by the numbers iron man style movie. Awful awful villains. Awful main villain. Boring action. Super generic plot. Like a mix between the first 2000s hulk movie and iron man.
It's exactly like that first hulk movie. Really bad. Almost ends the same way. Really Terrible.

Humor was great throughout. Really strong Latino elements. Most humor is geared towards Latino culture. I think 90% of the jokes have to do with culture. George Lopez was really great. The grandma lady was really great. Funny. A lot of Latino family jokes.
It's kinda sad. I want this movie to do well. But it's so generic.

 

[rageofthegods]

I will never buy into "comic book fatigue" as I don't think it exists. What has been happening is a slew of mediocre to bad movies/shows all within a very short period of time. GotG 3 came out not long after Quantumania and did as well or better than every other GOTG movie before it with a 6 year break between movies.

I think the "shift" has been post-pandemic, people are watching their wallets more closely and they aren't just blindly going to see every comic book film. They are waiting to see reviews and word of mouth on a movie to know if a movie is worth spending their money on it to see it in theaters or if they should just wait until theaters.

If the quality is there, people will show up most of the time for comic book movies, specifically with Marvel. DC is in a bit of a different predicament where they have a million problems at once. Marvel has quality control issues, but they haven't fully really their audience yet like DC sort of has. Even the low amount that Quantumania brought in for example rivals the best Worldwide totals DCEU has put up since post-Aquaman.

Hmm, I don't know. I don't think it's true that audiences will just suddenly abandon Batman or Spiderman but I also think don't it's unfair to say that oversaturation, general decline in quality, and evolving audience tastes (the bleak, three-hour physicist movie is gonna get close to a billion when all's said and done, while even viewership for the MCU shows is declining) is taking its toll. The pie seems to be getting smaller right as a major new competitor, Sony, is upping production. It's a bad situation. I think the second highlighted sentence is on the money: the days when obscure characters could get over a half-billion all on their own appear to be winding down.

"Bad movie fatigue" and runaway budgets killed the big Hollywood epics and Arthur Freed musicals in the 1960s rather than anything intrinsic to the genre. That doesn't mean there weren't hits afterwards - Fiddler was huge - but they were never as ubiquitous or as reliable a profit engine for the studios.

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

I think it's incorrect to say that he badness of these recent films isn't inherently linked to the genre itself. These movies aren't just randomly all bad in isolation, but bad because there's an entire system of production that viewed these movies as guaranteed investments, a system that in and of itself creates the conditions for laziness, overflowing budgets, overproduction, and the wanton reuse of popular storytelling styles regardless of fit (lampshading dialogue, 'colorful' CGI that still looks like sludge, everything coalescing in a prolonged third act battle, etc).

I think the closest analogue might be the antiquity pictures of the 50s and 60s where the genre almost proscribed a set of decisions and a level of budget that made all those films blur together over the course of time.

 

[Lucky Planet]

I really cannot imagine a world without superhero movies. At all. But that bubble has to burst eventually. Like the examples you guys gave. Or the western movies or other stuff.
I don't know what would happen to superheroes but,
I feel like the ending of the avengers saga didn't just put a shadow over marvel but also put a shadow over all superhero movies. When avengers ended and some of those characters died or retired., It felt like the entire superhero genre had come to a close in a way. The entire superhero culture had a conclusion kind of.

Yes spiderman does well. Batman does well. But I feel like the overall superhero culture and fandom has a conclusion with avengers endgame. Like, overall.
It's not " superhero fatigue" but more like the third chapter of superheroes. Maybe it's not fatigue, but, more like the end of a journey. Sometimes it feels like that.


Yes DC and James Gunn are literally starting a new chapter for DC. They are literally starting new. But I feel like some people just kind of gave up

 

[Jerroddragon]

I do want to point out it's also hard to mix all these elements

Everyone loves BB family....but also at a certain point they just can't have much screen time

Like if the Reach comes maybe you could fit them into a story but at least how I saw BB first was Young Justice and he was just a hero....now they have to balance his hero stuff with real life and can make the films also drag on at times

Avengers Infinity War really just had like one scene with many being normal but most the film they got to be just hero's but I think that is also part of the reason on why some characters can't be 100% fleshed out as well because they are stuffing too much into one film

 

[Nick]

I think it's incorrect to say that he badness of these recent films isn't inherently linked to the genre itself. These movies aren't just randomly all bad in isolation, but bad because there's an entire system of production that viewed these movies as guaranteed investments, a system that in and of itself creates the conditions for laziness, overflowing budgets, overproduction, and the wanton reuse of popular storytelling styles regardless of fit (lampshading dialogue, 'colorful' CGI that still looks like sludge, everything coalescing in a prolonged third act battle, etc).

I think the closest analogue might be the antiquity pictures of the 50s and 60s where the genre almost proscribed a set of decisions and a level of budget that made all those films blur together over the course of time.

Marvel did it for 11 years to great results. Extending to TV is where they went wrong.

Meanwhile, DC films don’t even have TV to fall back on and blame. The blame there goes to movies being made for the sake of making them.

Oversaturation - yes. No one wants a Blue Beetle or The Marvels film. But that’s just general lack of interest because it’s being forced upon us expecting it to succeed bc comic book movie. I don’t think most audiences are looking at “it’s a comic book movie, nope” when results are showing the GOOD comic book movies are still doing very well at the box office.

 

[Lucky Planet]

Marvel did it for 11 years to great results. Extending to TV is where they went wrong.

Meanwhile, DC films don’t even have TV to fall back on and blame. The blame there goes to movies being made for the sake of making them.

Oversaturation - yes. No one wants a Blue Beetle or The Marvels film. But that’s just general lack of interest because it’s being forced upon us expecting it to succeed bc comic book movie. I don’t think most audiences are looking at “it’s a comic book movie, nope” when results are showing the GOOD comic book movies are still doing very well at the box office.

Your post made me wonder,
Outside of marvel. (I count spiderman as part of marvel )
Has there ever been a good superhero movies that flopped? I exclude marvel because marvel is a giant juggernaut of a studio, and people automatically connect marvel to higher quality in general terms.
But, I'm not even talking about DC, in the past 10 years or so, has a good hero movie, a really good hero movie flop? Or even a TV show?

 

[Jerroddragon]

Your post made me wonder,
Outside of marvel. (I count spiderman as part of marvel )
Has there ever been a good superhero movies that flopped? I exclude marvel because marvel is a giant juggernaut of a studio, and people automatically connect marvel to higher quality in general terms.
But, I'm not even talking about DC, in the past 10 years or so, has a good hero movie, a really good hero movie flop? Or even a TV show?

People seem to love Legion and I don't think that did very well

But yeah seems like if you make a pretty well done Super Hero film 9/10 times it will do what it needs to

 

[Lucky Planet]

People seem to love Legion and I don't think that did very well

But yeah seems like if you make a pretty well done Super Hero film 9/10 times it will do what it needs to

yes! great answer, i didnt even watch it lol

 

[Nick]

To take a bit of a rosier outlook on this film, it is seemingly easily going to pass the domestic total for Shazam: Fury Of The Gods and i'd say very possibly going to do better than it worldwide as well. Fury Of the Gods was a SEQUEL to a very well received movie. So for Blue Beetle to do better than Shazam 2 is admittedly a low bar, but as a character that is unknown to the masses, it's also a good sign. Especially when you consider that the actors for Shazam 2 were able to promote the film and the cast of Blue Beetle was not.

 

[Jerroddragon]

To take a bit of a rosier outlook on this film, it is seemingly easily going to pass the domestic total for Shazam: Fury Of The Gods and i'd say very possibly going to do better than it worldwide as well. Fury Of the Gods was a SEQUEL to a very well received movie. So for Blue Beetle to do better than Shazam 2 is admittedly a low bar, but as a character that is unknown to the masses, it's also a good sign. Especially when you consider that the actors for Shazam 2 were able to promote the film and the cast of Blue Beetle was not.

I hope they bring the character back...but this film is a failure

Just didn't get anyone and had good reviews. DC needs to to get much better at marketing films because everything film that has come out in the last year lost them money and the Flash is one of the biggest flops ever

 

[imagin78]

DC fandom is too splintered and toxic at this point and general audiences just don't care and would rather wait for streaming. If Superman Legacy fails, I don't see anyway for a shared cinematic universe going forward.

It would be much wiser for James Gunn to zig where Marvel has zagged. Stick to making stand-alone films like Joker and The Batman.

 

[Jerroddragon]

DC fandom is too splintered and toxic at this point and general audiences just don't care and would rather wait for streaming. If Superman Legacy fails, I don't see anyway for a shared cinematic universe going forward.

It would be much wiser for James Gunn to zig where Marvel has zagged. Stick to making stand-alone films like Joker and The Batman.

I hope I'm wrong but Superman have his super dog...and like 3 other heroes in it plus villains and Super mans origins/other side characters. Feels like they have learned nothing from phase 5 of the MCU