DC Films is going blue. The studio has announced another film superhero project, Blue Beetle. The movie will focus on the comic’s third iteration of the hero, Jaime Reyes, and will thus be the first superhero film headlined by a Latino. The movie will also be written and directed by Latino filmmakers as Charm City Kings director Angel Manuel Soto steps into the director’s chair with Mexican-born screenwriter Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer writing the screenplay.
“It is an honor to direct Blue Beetle, the first Latino superhero film for DC,” said Soto in a statement. “I want to sincerely thank everyone at Warner Bros. and DC for trusting me to bring Jaime Reyes to life. I can’t wait to make history together.”
Soto’s Charm City Kings is a powerful and fantastic film. He’s had a career of making introspective movies, so he could bring something really special to a superhero film. However, aside from the Scarface remake that has yet to release, Dunnet-Alcocer’s only feature film credit is for the underwhelming English remake of Miss Bala, which suffered from a lot of structural issues. Hopefully, he can pull something a bit better out for Blue Beetle.
The character of Blue Beetle has been through a few incarnations. Originally the character got his powers from special vitamins, but eventually he was rebooted and his powers came from a magical blue scarab that provided super strength and flight among other powers. The second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, actually didn’t have any superpowers but used a variety of gadgets and technology he invented to fight crime. Jaime Reyes, the version of the hero in the film, finds the magical scarab in an abandoned lot and it fuses with him, giving him a powerful suit of armor. He is subsequently mentored by Kord. Just how this will all play out in the film isn’t known yet.
It’s also not known if Blue Beetle will fall into the current DCEU films or exist outside in another branch of DC Films’ expanding multiverse. Blue Beetle is a regular member of the Justice League and Reyes has been part of the Teen Titans, but that doesn’t mean the film will play into that or be connected at all. DC does seem to be expanding its Justice League roster, however, with the recent casting of Sasha Calle as Supergirl in The Flash.
