Blue Beetle Movie With Latino Lead Happening
The Blue Beetle movie is finally happening.
This article is more than 2 years old
Blue Beetle might not be a DC Comics character you are super familiar with. The character has gone through some significant changes over the course of his eighty years in publication. The most current version of the character is Jaime Reyes, a young Latinx man who is granted an extraterrestrial power suit that gives him enhanced abilities. There have been rumblings that DC has been trying to get a feature film of the character off the ground, and it looks like we have confirmation that the production is finally going to start moving forward.
The Wrap reports that the powers-that-be at Warner Bros./DC have tapped Charm City Kings director Angel Manuel Soto to helm the Blue Beetle movie with production hopefully beginning this fall. Mexican-born screenwriter Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer (Miss Bala) will be handling the scripting duties. As of now, there have been no casting announcements made regarding the picture.
The Blue Beetle is the perfect kind of DC superhero character to bring to the big screen. Audiences do not have decades of familiarity and expectations attached to the character like they do with Batman or Superman. In effect, it is likely that this feature film will be the first major exposure many audiences have to the character. That means that the filmmakers will have a lot more free reign to deliver a version of the character that they feel is right for the DC Extended Universe. Hopefully, they will not feel beholden to any other movies in the DC canon and can focus on crafting Blue Beetle to work on its own merits.
Casting Jaime Reyes will certainly be a big factor when it comes to how well Blue Beetle works. We wonder if the filmmakers will try to cast a known Latinx actor to help drum up interest in the character, or will they go the Christopher Reeve route and cast a practical unknown so that audiences don’t come to the movie with any preconceived notions due to the actor in the role?
We do have to wonder what this means for some of the other DC movies that have been confirmed to be in development. With news that Warner Bros./DC wants to fast-track Blue Beetle, we wonder what this might mean for a long-delayed project like Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam. There is no reason to believe that Black Adam has been shelved, but it does make us question what exactly is going on with that movie. If this can attempt to head into production so quickly, what exactly has the holdup been with Black Adam? And could this signify that Dwayne Johnson’s movie is getting put on the back-burner once again?
Blue Beetle will give the DC film universe its first lead Latinx superhero – they have had supporting characters like El Diablo in Suicide Squad and Renee Montoya in Birds of Prey – and could prove to be a breakout character for the studio. We can’t wait to see what the filmmakers have in store for the movie and we look forward to reporting any more substantial news about this newest addition to the DC Extended Universe.
