You might not want to hear it because we’re just another group of them but the mass audience doesn’t care about nerds or geeks writing reviews making YouTube videos or posting on forums like we are. These movies have gotten to such a large state despite people like us not because of it, the studios know they need to reach much much further then those who actually care about comic or book accuracy that’s the whole reason so many changes are made.
And yes people didn’t care about aqua man yet even with a lower draw and then race swapping on top of it the movie still did well and breathed fresh air into the character that likely hasn’t been seen since comics were at there peak In the 40-60’s as far as the mass public goes.
Then of course we have batman and them making cat woman black who is likely more popular then Johnny storm has ever been and it didn’t suffer for it at all.
Changing an important characters race doesn’t hurt movies making bad movies hurts movies.