Blue Beetle star Raoul Trujillo revealed on his personal Instagram that production on the upcoming DC film is close to its end. In his post, Trujillo also said the experience of shooting in Puerto Rico has been magical.
Blue Bettle stars Xolo Maridueña as Jaime Reyes, a young man who accidentally gets his hands on a powerful alien technology that allows him to manifest a weaponized exoskeleton. The film is the first DC live-action adaptation focused on a Latinx character and promises to explore a new corner of the world by taking production outside Hollywood. Blue Beetle has been shooting both in El Paso, Texas, and in Puerto Rico since May, and while the plot of the upcoming film is being kept in absolute secrecy, we can hope that at least part of the plot will take place in the Central American country. That would be a refreshing change of pace, since most superhero movies take place in the US, Europe, or fictional places.
In his post, Trujillo celebrated the experience of shooting in Puerto Rico while underlining that filming is almost over. Trujillo is expected to play Carapax the Indestructible Man in the upcoming film, a man whose mind gets trapped inside a mechanical suit he uses to commit crimes. Carapax, however, is not the only villain in the live-action adaptation, as Blue Beetle has cast Susan Sarandon as Victoria Kord, an antagonist created for the movie. While Sarandon’s character might be new, the name Kord has a long comic book history, as the first Blue Beetle was the genius scientist Ted Kord, the man who first explored the alien tech that gave him his superhero alias.
Blue Beetle is helmed by Puerto Rican director Angel Manuel Soto, from a script by Mexican writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer. It’s great to see Warner Bros. pushing some diversity on both sides of the camera, especially since Jaime Reyes is a Mexican-American teenager in comic books. The Latinx cast of Blue Beetle also includes Brazilian star Bruna Marquezine as a love interest for Jaime, Belissa Escobedo as Jaime’s younger sister Milagros Reyes, George Lopez, Adriana Barraza, Elpidia Carrillo, and Damián Alcázar.
While Jaime starts his journey as Blue Beetle while he’s still a teenager living in El Paso, the all-adult cast of the upcoming movie indicates the live-action adaptation might follow its own path. So either we are getting a new origin story for Jaime, or the film will tell a story years after the young man got used to the Blue Beetle persona. Either way, it will be interesting to see how the hero will be adapted to film, even more since the character became widely recognized thanks to the animated series Young Justice.
Initially set for an exclusive release on HBO Max, the live-action Blue Beetle adaptation is now coming to theaters on August 18, 2023. Check Trujillo’s original post below: