Even as Blue Beetle is looking more and more like the underdog DC film that could be the franchise’s last-minute redemption following The Flash‘s flop, we are getting more details about director Ángel Manuel Soto’s intriguing Batman spinoff pitch.
It turns out Soto’s initial talks with DC started as a general meeting with executives when his film Charm City Kings proved to have a successful run at the Sundance Film Festival, winning the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast. The movie went on to stream with HBO Max — the streaming service owned by the same company behind DC — Warner Brothers. In preparation for this meeting, Soto wisely decided to form a pitch for something he wanted to tackle from the world of Gotham City. As he explained to The Hollywood Reporter:
“I’ve always wanted to explore the origin story of Bane. It’s super intriguing, especially where he comes from and the different topics that could be explored if we take into consideration that maybe he’s the hero of his own story. So it was very interesting to be able to talk about situations that have affected the Caribbean and Latin America for centuries through the character of Bane. So I came in with that idea, but that was Matt Reeves’ universe with The Batman, and I don’t know what’s going to happen now with this new regime. But that was my main attempt.”
Upon hearing this Bane pitch, DC executive Galen Vaisman told him (according to Soto): “Okay, that’s a good idea, but we wanted to pitch you something.” At that point, Vaisman introduced Soto to the idea of him directing a Blue Beetle film. The director said he already had some familiarity with the character not only because of him being a Mexican-American superhero “but also the pop culture impact that he has had with cartoons like Young Justice.” Soto added that he used to play as Blue Beetle in the Injustice 2 video game and had a lot of friends who were fans of the character. However, Soto still had some reservations about the idea.
“So I got the call to do it, but I was a little bit hesitant at first, because Hollywood has had a history of misrepresenting us or putting us in a box of stereotypes. So I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to participate in perpetuating any stereotypes, and Galen reassured me, ‘Don’t worry about it. We have a guy from Queretaro, Mexico writing the script. His name is Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer. So just read the story, and if you don’t connect with it, then we can talk about something else.’ And when I read the story, I saw not only an honest depiction and a window into Latin American culture through the Reyes family, but I also saw a lot of myself and a lot of the same situations that have affected me as a Puerto Rican. So I connected with the shared experience that we have as Latinos, and that’s when I was convinced that this movie had to happen.”
This isn’t the first time Soto has talked about his Bane aspirations, either. In a previous interview that we also reported on, he mentioned that he transferred many of his Bane ideas of being a misunderstood villain that represents “the history of interventionism in Latin America and the Caribbean” to the Blue Beetle villain Carapax in the new movie – portrayed by Raoul Trujillo.
Blue Beetle — which is getting rave reviews — is playing at a theater near you beginning Friday.