‘Blue Beetle’s’ uncertain road to the big screen

Early in 2020, Soto was quarantining in his native Puerto Rico when he received a call that would put him on the path to directing “Blue Beetle.”

Galen Vaisman, a producer with Warner Bros., had seen Soto’s 2020 film “Charm City Kings,” a winner at the Sundance Film Festival. After a positive conversation and a recommendation from Vaisman to higher-ups at Warner Bros. and DC, Soto was brought on to helm “Blue Beetle’s” script by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer and to direct the film’s Latino star (“Cobra Kai’s” Xolo Maridueña) and its predominantly Latino cast with an authentic Latino lens.

But once filming was complete in the summer of 2022, “Blue Beetle’s” universe changed forever. Warner Bros. and Discovery merged, shaking up staffing and canceling an entire film, “Batgirl,” which would have been another star vehicle for a Latina actor (Leslie Grace).

Soto’s cellphone didn’t stop “blowing up” while he was on vacation with his wife celebrating the end of filming, he recalled in an interview. His friends wanted to know: If Batgirl couldn’t survive, what chance did a lesser-known character like Blue Beetle have?

Then Gunn and Peter Safran arrived. Under the new heads of all things DC at Warner Bros., DC’s movie division became DC Studios, a name change intended to mark a bold new era aimed at reclaiming old cinematic glory under new leadership. Gunn declared “Blue Beetle” the first character that will be a part of his new “DCU” when the film arrives in theaters Friday. The message was clear. This Blue Beetle, a character more familiar to younger DC fans from animation, video games and comics, would be a part of DC’s future on film.

“We went through [multiple] regimes knowing that the movie … could have been under threat with all the different cuts,” Soto said. “A lot of other movies that were set to be produced, they got shut down. We were right on the cusp.”

Soto said he always felt confident with his final cut of “Blue Beetle,” no matter whom he had to convince. Gunn and Safran’s stamp of approval felt like a graduation of sorts.

“They see the potential,” Soto said.

Reviving a decades-old character

There have been three iterations of the Blue Beetle, who is one of the oldest superheroes in all of comics. The original Blue Beetle, Dan Garrett, first appeared in “Mystery Men Comics” No. 1 in 1939. The second is technological genius Ted Kord, who debuted in DC Comics in a backup feature story in “Captain Atom” No. 83 in 1966. Kord was created by Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko.

Jaime Reyes is the newest Blue Beetle at DC Comics and the focus of the hero’s first film (which also mentions the previous Blue Beetles). He’s a young Mexican American who builds a symbiotic bond with an alien scarab that imbues him with high-tech battle armor and the ability to create any weapon imaginable. Reyes was first introduced at DC Comics in 2005 in “Infinite Crisis” No. 3.

Reyes was created by writer and artist Keith Giffen (co-creator of Rocket Raccoon of the Guardians of the Galaxy), writer John Rogers and artist Cully Hamner. Hamner’s Blue Beetle design was inspired by studying the look of beetles and adding a luchador feel with the suit’s mask as a nod to the character’s Mexican heritage.

“I had done a lot of little drawings of things that maybe the [Blue Beetle] suit could do,” Hamner said. “And John and Keith looked at that and said ‘oh that’s cool.’…. We started really going back and forth a lot. A lot of mutual inventiveness. The mandate that we had was to create something new.”

Blue Beetle’s first solo series at DC Comics by Giffen, Rogers and Hamner debuted in 2006. The character was most recently featured in a six-issue miniseries titled “Blue Beetle: Graduation Day,” published in both English and Spanish, by writer Josh Trujillo, artist Adrián Gutiérrez and colorist Wil Quintana. (The team is spinning out a new “Blue Beetle” monthly series in September.)

DC Comics president, publisher and chief creative officer Jim Lee said the reinvention of Blue Beetle has worked on multiple levels for DC in comics and other platforms.

“The all-new Blue Beetle not only differentiated his power set from previous iterations but as a Mexican American protagonist, his origin leaned heavily into his family and how they played an integral part of his hero’s journey,” Lee said.

A celebration of Latinidad

With “Blue Beetle,” Soto aimed to tell a multigenerational Mexican American story that spans the many layers of the Mexican diaspora. He leaned heavily on the script of Dunnet-Alcocer, who was born in Mexico. “Blue Beetle” touches on immigration status, gentrification fears, micro- and not-so-micro-aggressive racism against Latinos within the American White gaze and features a villain with an origin influenced by some of the United States’ most brutal military interventions in Latin America.

Soto made sure there was also fun to be had. Puerto Rican actor Carlos Ponce (a friend of Soto’s) has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo for novela lovers. Mexican actress Adriana Barraza plays an over-the-top abuela with a secret you have to see to believe. There are comedic nods to the classic ’90s Thalía novela “María la del Barrio,” as well as a Spanish rendition of the Jackson’s 1978 classic song “Blame it on the Boogie” (“Será Que No Me Amas” performed by Damian Castroviejo). Pop singer Becky G provides the voice for Khaji Da, the Blue Beetle’s alien scarab that gives him his super powers.

“We’re not a monolith,” Soto said referring to “Blue Beetle’s” Latinidad. “There’s a plethora of experiences that compose the Latino experience. We knew right off the bat that we could not put everything in one movie.”

For too long, “we have had other people tell our stories,” Soto said. “One of my first verbal negotiations with the studio was…if [Warner Bros.] is going to dictate how big the explosions are going to be, I’ll allow it, but you cannot tell me how free I’m going to be with expressing ourselves in our own effective way. And they allowed us to do that. They allowed us to explore our Latinidad in a way that isn’t forced, that isn’t what society expects. That we can make fun of the things we want to make fun of, but we also want to honor the things that they have never let us honor before.”

Soto has been a one-man promotional team as “Blue Beetle” prepares for its theatrical release, cramming in Zoom interviews, television appearances and early fan screenings of the film all over the country. He has preached solidarity with the film’s actors who are participating in the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which prevent “Blue Beetle” stars such as Maridueña from promoting the film.

“There’s no denying that the timing is unfortunate,” Soto said. “It’s sad that people cannot see them also being celebrated for the amazing accomplishment that they were able to do. But they are doing the heroic thing.”

As for the future of “Blue Beetle,” Soto says everything is on the table if the movie performs well. Other Blue Beetles in the fold? A team-up with Blue Beetle’s fan-favorite friend Booster Gold? Joining a super team with “justice” in the name?

“There’s more to tell,” Soto said. “Jaime’s story is not over yet.”