Blue Beetle is the latest DC superhero to make the jump to big screens, and the first live-action superhero movie about a Latinx character from Latinx filmmakers.
Blue Beetle’s HBO Max movie got a first look at DC FanDome
Meet your new Jaime Reyes.
Image: DC Entertainment
Joshua Rivera (he/him) is an entertainment and culture journalist specializing in film, TV, and video game criticism, the latest stop in a decade-plus career as a critic.
And at Saturday’s 2021 DC FanDome event, the first real details about the film were revealed.
The preview of the series gave fans a brief background on the history of the character and how he got his powers. The introduction included Xolo Maridueña, who plays Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle in the movie, who got to debut the first concept art of the character’s costume.
Image: DC Entertainment
Directed by Angel Manuel Soto, whose last film was the HBO Max exclusive Charm City Kings, and written by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer (Miss Bala), Blue Beetle will follow the exploits of Jaime Reyes, a Mexican-American teenager who gains strange armor and superpowers when an alien scarab-like machine fuses with his spine. Despite the body horror in that premise, Reyes is the kind of hero that lends himself well to a coming of age story and a comedy, as Jaime has no idea what the scarab can do.
Soto as on hand at the FanDome panel to describe a bit about what makes the character special and how the movie captures that.
“One thing the Gareth did really well is capture the Latino family at its core,” Soto said about the movie’s writer. “This film kind of opens this door for a new generation of what Blue Beetle can become at the hands of Jaime”
Created by Keith Giffen, John Rogers, and Cully Hamner for DC Comics, Jaime is actually the third Blue Beetle, following the obscure Golden Age crimefighter Dan Garret and the much more popular scientist and inventor Ted Kord. Whether or not the film will nod to those classic characters or feature them in a more involved way remains to be seen, but frankly? Jaime’s story is already cool as hell whether or not they show up.
Blue Beetle does not yet have a release date.
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