DC introduces fresh blood with Blue Beetle trailer
Blue Beetle, starring Cobra Kai’s Xolo Maridueña, will premiere in theaters August 18
Film News Blue Beetle
If you’re sick of seeing a new Batman and Superman every five years (or less), DC finally has someone brand new on offer: Jamie Reyes, a.k.a. Blue Beetle. The trailer for the new film, premiering in theaters August 18, dropped on Monday. It’s a major departure from the typical grimdark fare for Batman, who after all is (in the words of Jamie’s dad, played by George Lopez) a fascist.
Jaime (Cobra Kai’s Xolo Maridueña) is just a regular guy who is looking to lift himself and his family higher in the world. Instead, he delivers them right into an alien conspiracy when he inadvertently gets his hands on—and fuses with—the mysterious Scarab, “some kind of world-destroying weapon,” according to the trailer. (It’s like if the spider that bit Spider-Man was mega-advanced alien technology.) The Scarab’s purpose is to protect its host, and to that end, it adorns an unwilling Jamie with a kick-ass exoskeleton and any weapon he can possibly imagine. (It’s like if Iron Man’s suit was mega-advanced alien technology.)
Unlike some other comic book characters we could name, Jaime’s family is along for the ride as he learns to harness the Scarab’s power into superheroics. Good thing, too, because a villainous Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon) is dead-set on acquiring the item for herself.
Maridueña has the distinction of being DC’s first big-screen Latino hero. Much like his would-be peer, Leslie Grace’s Batgirl, Blue Beetle was originally slated to debut on HBO Max. For whatever reason, DC Studios saw fit to promote Blue Beetle to a full theatrical release and demote Batgirl to no release at all. This occurred before James Gunn and Peter Safran were brought aboard, though the new bosses have been vocally supportive of the decision. (Gunn shared on Twitter that the film “rocks,” encouraging followers to check out the “warm, funny, wonderful film” in theaters between tweets about Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3.)
As one of the films that predates Gunn and Safran’s planned slate (like Shazam! Fury Of The Gods and Black Adam before it), it’s unclear where and how Blue Beetle fits into DC’s multiverse. The film will debut after the big reset heralded in The Flash, so Jaime may become part of the main continuity alongside planned films for Superman, Batman, and Supergirl. However, he could just as easily belong in the “Elseworlds” category with Robert Pattinson’s Batman and Joker. Whatever the case, they do have Big Belly Burger in Jamie’s universe, so true DC fans should feel right at home.
21 Comments
I know nothing about Blue Beetle but it looks interesting enough. The trailer screams MCU clone though, and I’m undecided on if that’s a good or a bad thing.
I feel nothing about this. I’ve been reading DC comics for decades. I was excited when Blue Beetle showed up on Smallville! But the past decade of DC movie output has left me completely uninterested in anything they put out.Add to that the Jaime has not been interesting in comics since before the New 52 reboot, and the last time he was interesting at all was in Young Justice Season 2, which is now over a decade ago.It’s a shame that they haven’t done anything of note with the character since then, I’ve picked up all his series and found them boring. I remember being real into him back when he was getting discovered by Booster Gold, and then launching an infiltration on Brother Eye.The Tony Bedard series that launched with the New 52, was, like most of the New 52, bad and forgettable. Keith Giffen/Scott Kolins series from 2016, despite great art, was boring and I dropped it. The current Blue Beetle: Graduation Day was baaaad and I dropped it as well.
Eh. I think it’s pretty refreshing to have his family in on it from the get go.
Might need to buffer a few more of those pixel renders, some of that Beetle CG is looking kinda rough:
Whoa, stop the presses! This random guy’s got an opinion about CGI.
Also hilariously appears to have picked two shots that are of the practical suit with minor cg enhancements, instead of fully CG shots.
Big Belly Burger still in canon!
Does that mean you really have to poop real bad?
Among other things, yes!
It’s not from the Arrowverse originally, so that tracks. It’s an 80s comics thing.
Yeah it still tickles my funnybone though.
*In the voice of Superintendent Chalmers
“Year after year of boring, boring DC films…”
Jaime Reyes debuted when I was the same age as the character and, being Mexican-American myself, saw a lot of myself in the character. That meant a lot to me, so I’m really rooting for this film. So far, no complaints! I think this trailer looks like a lot of fun. The shots are all bright and colorful, and we get nods to the Golden Age and Ted Kord Blue Beetles to boot. I hope he doesn’t quietly disappear after Gunn/Safran start implementing their DC universe.
I think Gunn’s on the record as saying he liked this character and portrayal and had been planning to keep them around, but honestly if he said literally anything else it’d be box office poisoning of the company he works for, so who can really say.
Ehh, what he says, what he does, and what ends up happening are all very different things.
That’s hardly new, more of a DC tradition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unproduced_DC_Comics_projects
That’s kinda’ my point. WB could get sold tomorrow (figuratively) and a new boss could kick out Gunn and restart the DCU again. I wasn’t suggesting it’s entirely up to the whims of James Gunn whether we see Jaime, say, crossover with Peacemaker.Heads up though, Gunn, I do want that.
Wait, his his name Jamie (as you spelled it in the article) or Jaime (as pronounced in the preview)?
I’m curious to see how this compares to the one Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang did in the 90s.
It’s too bad they didn’t start with the Ted Kord Blue Beetle. The parallels to the MCU Tony Stark/Peter Parker are all there with Ted and Jaime.
At least it looks like they’re using all of Kord’s tech in this. I never thought I’d see a movie where George Lopez is flying Blue Beetle’s Bug.
Marvel should go into the Malibu vaults and resurrect Prototype.