Before the full-on universe reboot that is headed up by James Gunn and Peter Safran makes its debut, the former DC film world still has a few movies on its slate. The Flash will finally be making its way into theaters this week, and we’ll see if the early buzz on it will match its success. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is set to release later this year. However, in between these films, there will also be a big-screen adaptation of a lesser-known DC superhero in Blue Beetle. Blue Beetle may not exactly be a marquee name, but the character dates back to the 1930s with the brand.
Warner Bros. has recently dropped a couple of new posters for the upcoming film, which stars Cobra Kai‘s Xolo Maridueña as the titular character. He is joined by such name actors as Susan Sarandon and George Lopez. Maridueña plays a down-on-his-luck college grad who happens upon a piece of ancient alien biotech called the Scarab, which bonds to his body and gives him extraordinary abilities. The two posters display the tagline, “Jaime Reyes is a superhero whether he likes it or not,” which plays into the whole “reluctant hero” theme of the movie.
Maridueña found fame as the new protégé of 80s bully Johnny Lawrence in Cobra Kai, where the young actor gets to display his fighting ability. He is looking to parlay that into action films. Blue Beetle was already in production before the new DC heads, Gunn and Safran, were brought on by Warners. But, this movie seemingly stands apart from the others by not featuring appearances from any of the earlier film characters in the DC universe — that we know of so far. That may allow it to stand on its own, which could bode well for the future of the character.
The Blue Beetle star, Maridueña, will wait to see how the movie does before jumping into any sequel or crossover talk. “If we get one movie or a trilogy and f*cking fold this into the Justice League shit, we’re ready for the whole nine. For me and Angel [Manuel Soto, director] and the team, we kicked ass with this movie. It just depends on numbers.“ For now, Maridueña is just proud he’s able to bring a major Latino superhero to the big screen. “The goal was to create a movie for a young me and a young Angel that said, ‘Hey, man, someone who looks like you or comes from a similar background can be a superhero.’ The second thing was to open more doors for people like us. As fun as it is to get into this superhero world where everything is [dialled up to] 110 per cent, [it’s] the characters… that I’ve [most] related to.“
Blue Beetle will hit theaters on August 18, 2023.