Vin Diesel’s ‘Bloodshot’ Was Never Going To Start A Valiant Cinematic Universe

The cinematic universe is not inherently appealing to moviegoers, while audiences don’t care about comic book superhero movies that aren’t from Marvel or DC.

With a $9.1 million opening (pretty close to the $10 million pre-release tracking guestimate), Vin Diesel’s Bloodshot was never going to be a hit. To be fair, a halfway decent overseas showing on par with, for example, The Last Witch Hunter ($26 million domestic but $147 million worldwide in 2015) would have been okay. The Sony release only cost $42 million, while the Lionsgate offering cost $90 million. The notion of Bloodshot being a small-scale genre hit wasn’t out of the question. The Valiant comic book has a small fanbase, Vin Diesel is a brand unto himself, and the pitch was another variation on “murdered dude avenges his own murder” shtick (The Wraith, Robocop, The Crow, Upgrade, etc.). But the notion that it would kick off a Valiant cinematic universe was always a pipe dream.

That was the official line from the first trailer to the week of release. Whether that was still feasible, with Bloodshot coming from Sony and the next alleged Valiant title Harbinger in development over at Paramount, I cannot say. It may have been as unlucky as a successful Dark Tower causing Sony and Warner Bros. to combine their respective Stephen King properties. It would have been a good problem for any studio to have, and it’s a moot point. Unless it goes straight to streaming, Bloodshot 2 isn’t going to happen. Moreover, the idea that Bloodshot would kick-start a new cinematic universe set within the world of Valiant comics was based on two flawed notions, both stemming from the blow-out success of Marvel ’s The Avengers in May of 2012.

First, a cinematic universe is not inherently appealing to moviegoers. That’s why the attempts to either create or pretzel existing franchises into a so-called cinematic universe almost all failed. The few success stories have almost been accidental. New Line struck gold with their Conjuring Universe, although they didn’t even start calling it such a thing until they had two hit Conjuring movies and one hit spin-off (Annabelle) with more on the way. As of now, New Line and Warner Bros.’ religious, R-rated horror franchise has earned $1.8 billion over six movies on a combined budget of $131 million. Universal’s Fast & Furious series became an accidental cinematic universe because it took them a few tries to get Vin Diesel and Paul Walker back for a conventional sequel to The Fast & the Furious.

Meanwhile, the Transformers cinematic universe was merely threatened. In contrast, Sony’s attempt to sell The Dark Tower as part of a Stephen King universe arguably caused the film to open below its already mediocre tracking. Even the Star Wars brand couldn’t make Solo into a hit, while a $529 million-grossing Godzilla and a $569 million-grossing Kong: Skull Island couldn’t make Godzilla: King of the Monsters ($385 million) into a hit. DC Films, which has some of the most famous fictional characters in the world, initially struggled with their cinematic universe. The post-Suicide Squad movies have been mostly standalone, but still mostly set within the realm of Man of Steel and Batman v Superman. That’s technically how Marvel mostly does it too. You don’t have to see Ant-Man and the Wasp to enjoy Black Panther. Even Sony’s Venom was standalone.

Universal’s “Dark Universe” was a one-and-done attempt, with Tom Cruise’s surprisingly lousy The Mummy emphasizing world-building and mythology over character and standalone entertainment value. The Invisible Man, which was absolutely a hit (rave reviews, scorching buzz and $124.5 million worldwide on a $9 million budget) before theaters closed, was the opposite approach. Leigh Whannell’s offering was a low-budget, R-rated horror movie that just happened to offer a reinvention of a well-known piece of horror IP. Point being, if audiences didn’t care about the characters contained within the Valiant universe, including ideally at least one already-successful feature film as a backdoor pilot, merely selling the notion of a Valiant cinematic universe wasn’t going to move the needle. All due respect, the mostly standalone Bloodshot was no Iron Man or The Conjuring. At best, it’s a lesser version of Venom.

Second, when we talk about how audiences love comic book movies, we really mean that they love Marvel and DC flicks. Bloodshot merely joins Hellboy, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and Ghost in the Shell as the latest failed comic book adaptation. Alita: Battle Angel almost clicked, but $405 million isn’t enough on a $170 million budget. Atomic Blonde was sold as a Charlize Theron action spectacular, and it still “only” earned $100 million on a $30 million budget. Big Hero 6 was sold as a Walt Disney Animation offering first and a Marvel adaptation second. Even Hercules was sold less as “an adaptation of that comic book version of Hercules” and more as “See Dwayne Johnson play Hercules!” It still only earned $244 million on a $100 million budget.

The 2014 reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles scored ($491 million on a $125 million budget), but A) that was a very popular property and B) that IP is better known for its cartoons than its comic books. The last genuinely successful “not a DC or Marvel” comic book franchise was arguably Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman’s Kingsman: The Secret Service. The Mark Millar adaptation was sold as an R-rated Roger Moore 007 movie (which it somewhat was) and earned a robust $428 million on an $81 million budget in early 2015. Since then, most of the comic book superhero movies, and certainly most of the comic book superhero hits, have been from either Marvel (MCU or otherwise) or DC. and even those brands aren’t bulletproof. It wasn’t until just three years ago that a non-Batman/Superman DC flick had earned more than Constantine ($231 million in 2005).

The MCU’s popularity couldn’t save non-MCU titles like Fantastic Four or Dark Phoenix. Part of this discrepancy is rooted in the same reason why non-comic book tentpole action movies are struggling against the MCU/DC Films variety. Marvel and DC have made a point to diversify in terms of genre, with (for example) Captain America: The Winter Soldier being a 1970’s spy flick or Wonder Woman being a World War I melodrama. Meanwhile, the likes of King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Solo, The Mummy and, yes, Bloodshot, have comparatively been crafted as generic superhero origin stories. In a world where being “just a superhero movie” is no longer unique, the Marvel/DC films are standing out by offering both superhero tropes and high-quality genre appropriations that can often surpass the genuine article (Birds of Prey > The Gentlemen).

Bloodshot was both not a very good movie. It’s not nearly as enjoyable as xXx: Return of Xander Cage or as ridiculously ambitious as The Chronicles of Riddick. It’s also an example of two things that Hollywood thinks is/thought was bankable despite ample proof to the contrary. The cinematic universe isn’t in-and-of-itself a viable commercial hook to audiences otherwise uninterested in the films being sold. Just because audiences flocked to The Avengers doesn’t mean they show up in equal numbers for any old Justice League movie. And the very idea of a comic book superhero movie is no longer extraordinary, which even Marvel and DC have shown with the likes of The Incredible Hulk and Green Lantern. Just because people drink Dr. Pepper doesn’t mean they will pay the same price for Dr. Skipper.