“Blue Beetle” is a milestone film for the superhero genre. Within the narrative of the DCU, Blue Beetle himself is the first hero to be brought aboard by James Gunn and also the big screen’s first Latino lead superhero. Xolo Maridueña debuts as Jamie Reyes, who accidentally fuses with the Scarab, an ancient alien biotechnical relic, to become the Blue Beetle. Director Angel Manuel Soto helms the first in a planned trilogy of “Blue Beetle” films. “Of course, we can’t put everything in one movie, and that’s why this is the first act of a bigger saga,” said Soto. “There’s so much more to be said that I’m really looking forward to saying. We wanted to tell the movie in a way that felt like, what if Latin cinema embraced a superhero film? We spend time with Jamie, with his family; we know what’s at stake and how they behave. The Scarab is an intruder, so when it attaches to him and all hell breaks loose, the stakes are more personal, and you care more.”
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When asked about what the focus of the second installment might be, Soto explained that “‘Blue Beetle’ [the first film] is Jamie’s story. We wanted to focus on him and his family. By the end of the movie, there will be questions about the scarab, and I hope to answer them. For the next film, I hope to tell the whole story of what happened to the scarab, where he comes from, why he was sent, and hopefully in the end, who they have to defeat.”
Beyond “Blue Beetle,” Soto was reported to have also pitched an idea for a film about the iconic DC villain Bane. During our conversation, he offered more details about his thoughts on the character, his fascination and passion for him, and what his Bane origin movie looks like.
“As far as Bane goes, it feels like he’s very misunderstood,” said Soto, who related Bane to the misrepresentation that Latin audiences have often been faced with in American cinema. “We are used to being introduced to the world in movies as villains. It’s almost a given that we’re born that way. When we talk about the history of Latin America, nobody dares to question what happened before.”
Several core elements of his ideas for the Bane film ultimately found their way into Soto’s approach to the character of Carapax (Raoul Trujillo) in “Blue Beetle.”
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“Much like Carapax, Bane’s a product of his environment,” said Soto. “He is, in his own right, a hero. That’s how I pitched it. DC appreciated it, but they called me in because they wanted ‘Blue Beetle.’ While I was working on Carapax, I thought, I don’t know if I’ll ever make a Bane movie. Let me take what I loved about Bane, about the backstory that I wanted to explore, and give it to Carapax. It’s the history of the Caribbean, the Antilles, a history that’s been brushed off. I think that what Bane represents is the history of interventionism in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Of course, Soto could not give away every aspect of his Bane pitch, but he did tease one key idea: “Maybe Carapax and Bane both came from Pago Island.” Given that standalone movies about DC villains have been shown to work – “Joker” in particular – and since Soto has a clear plan of how to integrate his Bane film into the larger world of DC, hopefully, James Gunn and Peter Safran will use the success of the director’s first film in this universe to let him give it a shot.
“Blue Beetle” releases in theaters on August 18. You can hear Angel Manuel Soto’s ideas for a Bane origin movie below: