Warner Bros. is moving forward with a Blue Beetle film based on the DC superhero of the same name. Charm City Kings director Angel Manuel Soto is officially set to direct the Blue Beetle movie for the studio and DC films.

Speaking to The Wrap, Soto was quoted as saying, “It is an honor to direct Blue Beetle, the first Latino superhero film for DC, 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.” The film will be written by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, a Mexican-born screenwriter whose other credits include Universal's upcoming Scarface remake and Sony Pictures' action-thriller, Miss Bala.

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While other Latinx characters have appeared in the DC Extended Universe, such as El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) in Suicide Squad and Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) in Birds of Prey, Soto's Blue Beetle will be the first standalone DC film to feature a Latino lead. In the comics, Blue Beetle is the superhero alter ego used by several different characters throughout comic book history. The character has moved around to several different comic book publishers over the years and was also the inspiration for the character 'Nite Owl' in Alan Moore's acclaimed graphic novel Watchmen.

Blue Beetle

The original Blue Beetle was created for Fox Comics by either Charles Wojtkowski or Charles Cuidera under the pseudonym Charles Nicholas. In his later years, Cuidera claimed to be the creator, even though historians usually credit Wojtkowski. Fox Comics eventually went under and was bought by Charlton Comics. The first Blue Beetle was named Dan Garrett, a police officer who initially gained superpowers from a special vitamin. He was later reimagined as an archeologist who gained his abilities from a mystical Egyptian scarab. The second character to take up the Blue Beetle mantle was Ted Kord, a genius athlete and former student of Garret with no superpowers who was created by comics legend Steve Ditko. Charlton Comics went out of business in the 1980s, which was when the character was moved over to DC comics.

The third and current Blue Beetle is Jaime Reyes, a regular teenager from El Paso, Texas who took on the name when he discovered the mystical scarab on his way home from school. After the scarab came alive, it grafted itself to Reyes' spine, providing him with a super-powered extraterrestrial suit of armor. Created by Keith Giffen, John Rogers, and Cully Hamner, the character made his first appearance in Infinite Crisis #3 in 2006. This version of the character will serve as the inspiration for the film.

Born in Puerto Rico, Angel Manuel Soto directed his first feature in 2015 with La Granja (The Farm), which follows the lives of several Puerto Rican characters as they struggle in the pursuit of happiness. Soto has worked on several virtual reality projects over the years and more recently he directed the award-winning film Charm City Kings, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020 and tells the story of a 13-year-old boy who desperately wants to join a group of infamous Baltimore dirt bike riders.

The Blue Beetle movie is currently set to start production in the fall of 2021.

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Source: The Wrap