Blue Beetle is knocking at our doors as it prepares for its theatrical bow tomorrow, and if the early critical response is anything to go by, DC fans old and new are in for a treat and a half. Indeed, from the ever-charming lead performance of Xolo Maridueña to the deft directorial hand of Ángel Manuel Soto, it sounds like the whole Blue Beetle team understood the assignment inside and out.
To call it a high point of the DC Extended Universe would be woefully redundant, but we’d be remiss to forget that Blue Beetle is also a very soft starting point for James Gunn’s incoming DC Universe, with the new DC Studios co-chair having confirmed that Maridueña’s Jaime Reyes would be brought over to the incoming mythos as the DCEU enters obsoletion.
It was a point of relief for Soto, who revealed in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter just how overjoyed he was that the cobalt-clad champion managed to book his ticket on Gunn’s ark.
“It’s the fact that all of this effort was not going to die during this regime change. There’s also a belief in our characters, who are now going to be part of this new DC universe, especially Xolo’s character and his whole family and Bruna Marquezine’s character. So, knowing that they are going to continue to move forward in the DCU allowed me to feel relief for myself and for them.”
Of course, Soto and company should be taking pride in Blue Beetle regardless of its triumphs in the realm of continuity; the film succeeding in fighting for an upgrade from an exclusive Max release to a theatrical run, it’s the first-ever live-action superhero movie to feature a Latino lead, and by the sounds of things, the team managed to craft one of the most compelling superhero movies in recent memory all without an overindulgence of CGI or world-ending stakes. Indeed, getting the DCU stamp of approval is all fine and dandy, but even if it didn’t, the effort behind Blue Beetle would have never truly “died.”
Blue Beetle drops into theaters tomorrow on Aug. 18.