Speaking To The Makers Of Blue Beetle Filled Me With Hope For The Latest DC Superhero Movie
Blue Beetle is a DC Comics character you might know if you've watched The CW TV shows or read the comics. For the average viewer, however, he might be as unfamiliar to you as the Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man originally were for casual Marvel fans.
Today, Warner Bros. released the first trailer for "Blue Beetle," who has his own film on the way. Another superhero flick, you say? I get it. I really do. I'm a huge fan of the genre, but to be honest with you, I've been feeling the same way. There is so much superhero lore to keep track of and earlier films and shows to catch up on, and many fans are understandably tired of it all. It's starting to feel like homework.
However, this week, I got a chance to attend a trailer event for "Blue Beetle," and I left feeling pretty great about this one. From what I saw and heard when director Angel Manuel Soto and star Xolo Maridueña did a Q&A after the event, "Blue Beetle" isn't going to be a film that you need to spend hours preparing for.
Unlike some of the bigger names in the DCU, Jaime Reyes isn't an alien, royalty, a goddess, or a rich guy with a lot of toys and a dark past. He's just a kid working in a hotel, and new to all of this "hero" stuff. It feels refreshing, and it's exactly the sort of superhero film we need right now. Here's what we learned about "Blue Beetle," some pictures of the suit that was worn in the movie, and what Soto and Maridueña told us about the film.
A largely practical suit
We saw the suit before the trailer was shown, and it looks pretty great. The scarab itself is fairly large and almost looks like a backpack (let's take bets on how long it will take to sell these). I spoke to Soto briefly after the event, and he told me that making it as practical as possible was the plan, and yes, Maridueña did wear this exact suit. I have to say, looking at the care taken here with the texture and crafting got me more excited for the film. Soto also told us that the video game "Injustice 2," in which Blue Beetle is a playable character, was an influence on the design.
Jenna Busch
Jaime Reyes as Blue Beetle appeared for the first time in 2006, but there were other versions of the character before him, dating back to "Mystery Men Comics" #1 in 1939. I asked Soto about the lore he was pulling from. He said:
"There's so many great things that [go] from "Infinite Crisis" and even to the new one, "Graduation Day," which actually took a lot from what we did in the movie; we introduced Palmera City as trying to put Jaime in a city that [is] kind of the same thing as Superman has Metropolis [or] Central City for the Flash, Gotham ... why doesn't [Jaime] have his own city? He's f***ing dope. And that doesn't mean that El Paso is not dope. El Paso is awesome, and El Paso is very much present in the life of the family ... [it's] thanks to Palmera City as well, and the bigger world-building around it is what got us the theatrical."
As you may know, the film was originally meant to debut directly on HBO Max, but ended up getting a theatrical release when the corporate regime changed at Warner Bros. Discovery.
It's all about family
Soto and Maridueña spoke about how important Jaime's family is to the story, and probably more so than for other superheroes. Maridueña said:
"Something that we were just discussing that's kind of funny is, we see some of these other superheroes who are able to hide from their family the fact that they're a superhero. But I mean, as you guys just saw in the trailer, his family is right there on that first transformation. So to good luck keeping a secret ... it can't happen without the family. That's a theme that I think, whether or not you're Latino, it transcends ethnicity, it transcends color of skin, because that's something that we can all relate [to]."
Soto added that there are three generations in Jaime's house, and for him as a filmmaker, it "is probably the most satisfying thing ... being able to get an authentic chemistry from a collective that feels like something I grew up with."
What ultimately came across at the event is that, though this is a story about a Latino family, there is universal appeal here. Soto said:
"My culture is not a buzzword. We exist, and we coexist. For me, being able to integrate those things that make us special because the only thing that it does is ... it's a flavor. It's like laughter. People laugh differently, yet [it's] still laughter. We grieve differently. We cry, we deal with loss differently, but [it's] still loss.
So it's always nice to see something that we are used to seeing a little bit with other superheroes that we love and we cherish, but what if we see it my way, our way, and invite the audience also to not feel repelled by it, [but to] come to the party?"
Will Blue Beetle be a one and done?
What really struck me was what Soto said about how we all might laugh differently, but that it's still laughter. The trailer made this feel like a small family film with really high stakes. It feels approachable but still important to the world. You can feel the closeness and how sort of in your business a family can be while still supporting you in every way they can.
One of the big sticking points with "Blue Beetle" is that the films that take place before James Gunn and Peter Safran's new DCU begins sort of feel like leftovers. After having seen this trailer, though, that makes me sad. This looks like such a lovely story, and I don't want to see it drown like the last "Shazam" film. That said, both Soto and Maridueña mentioned the future of the character more than once.
In fact, Soto said, "if ... this movie becomes a massive f***ing hit, we're going to see a lot of those, [and] that's what needs to happen." He said that it's important to support movies with variety that "really celebrate differences, celebrate cultures, celebrate other worlds, because it's fun."
This is what I want to see from comic book movies
We talk all the time on social media, in bars, in articles, and in random conversations about how we want to see something different. Heck, I just wrote a story about the frequency of superhero projects and how it's getting to be too much to keep track of. The thing is, this is a smaller-scale story, and it's a character that many people aren't as familiar with. This is what I want to see. Something new, even if it connects to the larger DCU. This is what I was hoping for. What worries me is that people won't see this film, either because it's one of the last before the big changes or because they want what they're used to. This may not be a culture that I'm personally a part of, but I want to see things that aren't what I know in the same way I always wanted to see a female superhero as a little girl. We've had enough of the same old thing. This is different, and that matters. As Soto said:
"What I care about is opening doors, and in a world where people really crave taking people down, and [making] them fail, all that bulls***, supporting each other is the only way we can tell different stories. Not all of them are going to be perfect, but they're going to exist. Being able to see other kids watch this movie or watch other movies and see themselves represented and say like, 'Man, I want to tell a story about my community.' And then that kid becomes an amazing writer. Then we're going to see all those characters that you want to see, because I want to see them, too."
"Blue Beetle" will hit theaters on August 18, 2023.