Not for the first time, it looks like the Blue Beetle is getting a movie. However, for the first time, it looks like a solo act and a director has been assigned — Angel Manuel Soto will helm from a script (in progress) by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer. Production is set to begin in the Fall of 2021, and we’ll expect an update on the release date within the next couple of weeks, assuming this all actually really happens. It is DC Films, after all.
It’s been a long time coming. Just over 10 years ago, Geoff Johns revealed via Twitter that DC had okayed putting together a short test film to see how viable the character could be in live-action. See the footage for yourself, starring Garrett Plotkin as Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle:
You can see, it worked pretty well in 2010.
Jaime also appeared in Season 10 of Smallville, played by Jaren Brandt Bartlett, in an episode that hinted at a possible spin-off with Booster Gold. (Though in the comics it’s the previous Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, who has the friendship with Booster.) In the intervening years we’ve had a rumor of TNT doing a Blue and Gold series, and finally Greg Berlanti, mastermind of the Arrowverse, wanting to develop a Blue and Gold film. But really, I said it back in 2010 and I’ll say it again — this version of Blue Beetle is a fun design, kids love him, and Soto could create a great superhero family film that could stand on its own or cross over into whatever the larger DC Films universe is.
The Blue Beetle is a convoluted legacy character in comics — created in 1939 for Fox Comics, he was police officer Dan Garrett. Charlton Comics revived him in the 1960s, first as Garrett (now an archaeologist) and then revamped by Steve Ditko as Ted Kord, who had been one of Garrett’s students before becoming a genius inventor. Garrett had mystical super-strength; Kord was a techno-action-hero, like most of Charlton’s “Action Heroes.” When DC bought the characters — Kord inspired Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Nite-Owl — Kord stayed relatively unchanged, until Maxwell Lord killed him in an event kicking off Infinite Crisis.
Created by Keith Giffen, John Rogers, and Cully Hamner, Jaime Reyes became Blue Beetle when Garrett’s scarab found its way to him, now revealed as an alien weapon. In addition to Smallville, Jaime has appeared in animated form on Batman: Brave and the Bold and Young Justice. But look at him! He’s like a Power Ranger in the DC Universe! OF COURSE kids will want to watch him and play with his action figure! This one had better finally pan out.
