DC ignoring the chance to delay its sure-to-be fourth bomb in a row is a decision it may come to regret

DC’s Blue Beetle is in a precarious position ahead of its release, seemingly setting it up for failure at the box office. However, this possibly could have been avoided if Warner Bros. executives had taken the opportunity to delay the film by a year — which was something they contemplated at one point.

From Black Adam onward, DC has struggled to generate anything other than box office flops. The most infamous of these is probably The Flash since the hype around that film was palpable leading up to its release, with even Tom Cruise apparently loving it in some sort of secret screening. Still, the combination of The Flash‘s underperformance with ticket sales and its high production budget has made it one of the biggest superhero movie bombs of all time.

Though it was once destined as a streaming exclusive, Blue Beetle is now just weeks away from hitting theaters and introducing audiences to the first character for James Gunn’s DC Universe. However, the state of Hollywood right now and DC’s poor recent track record at the box office means WB execs may be regretting not delaying the movie as they once discussed. The Twitter account Discussing Film shared this bit of insider information, citing the entertainment news site Puck.

Blue Beetle seems poised to follow the same pattern of flops DC has been plagued with lately since it is a superhero not well known to the public, the marketing has arguably been poor for the movie, and word will continue to not get out about it now that the Screen Actors Guild strike is in effect, which prohibits actors from promoting movies on the red carpet and social media alike.

If you’re really rooting for this movie — which admittedly does look fairly fun — Blue Beetle comes to theaters on August 18.