Before the full reboot of the universe, led by James Gunn and Peter Safran, debuts, the former DC film universe has a few more films on its slate. The lightning will finally make its way to theaters this week, and we’ll see if the early buzz matches its success. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom due out later this year. However, among these films, there will also be a big screen adaptation of a lesser-known DC superhero in the Blue beetle. The Blue Beetle may not exactly be a marquee name, but the character dates back to the 1930s with the brand.
Warner County. recently released some new posters for the upcoming film, in which he stars Cobra Kai‘s Xolo Maridueña as the title character. He is joined by big name actors like Susan Sarandon and George Lopez. Maridueña plays a hapless college graduate who encounters a piece of ancient alien biotechnology called a Scarab, which bonds with his body and gives him extraordinary abilities. Both posters feature the tagline, “Jaime Reyes is a superhero whether he likes it or not. which plays into the whole “reluctant hero” theme of the film.
Maridueña found fame as the new protégé of 80s bully Johnny Lawrence in Cobra Kai, where the young actor can show off his racing prowess. He wants to turn this into action movies. Blue beetle may have already been in production before Warners introduced new DC heads Gunn and Safran, but there’s certainly an interpretation of where the series fits into the universe, as this film seemingly stands out from the others as it doesn’t includes appearances by any of the previous movie characters in the DC universe — that we know of so far.
The Blue beetle The female lead, Maridueña, will wait to see how the movie goes before jumping into any sequel or crossover talk. “If we put in a movie or a trilogy and wrap it around the Justice League shit, we’re ready for the nines. 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 to be able to bring an important Latino superhero to the big screen. “The goal was to make a movie about a young me and a young Angel that would say, ‘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 step into this world of superheroes where everything is [dialled up to] 110 percent, [it’s] the characters… that I have [most] related.”
Blue beetle will be released in cinemas August 18, 2023.
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