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Blue Beetle Star and Director Explains the Importance of Jaime Reyes’ Family
The first trailer for Blue Beetle arrived on Monday, bringing the latest DC hero onto the big screen. Not only did the trailer showcase the origin story of Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle (Xolo Maridue?a), but it revealed an interesting wrinkle in that story — that his extended family knows about his accidental superpowers to begin with. While that might go against some of the tropes of the superhero world, it sounds like it will lend itself to some fun in Blue Beetle. At a recent press Q&A with ComicBook.com and other outlets, Maridue?a and director Angel Manuel Soto spoke about how significant Jaime’s family will be to the film.
“So one of the things that we really wanted to do with the cast was to be able to be as authentic as we can,” Soto revealed. “We wanted to tap into almost the three generations. We wanted to see the first immigrant family, then when they bring their sons, and then the sons start born here. So being able to tap into the three generations authentically. Xolo, who was born here, and is Mexican American, as Belissa is. She plays Milagros, the sister. And then you have characters like George Lopez, who’s been here for a minute, and he’s like a national treasure, and Elpidia as well, who plays the mom. George plays the uncle.”
“And kind of to Angel’s point about the family, something that we were just discussing that’s kind of funny is — we see some of these other superheroes who are able to hide from their family the fact that they’re a superhero,” Maridue?a echoed. “But I mean, as you guys just saw in the trailer, his family is right there on that first transformation.”
“To come through this journey together is something that I think we haven’t seen before in superhero movies, and that really is the beating heart of this movie,” Maridue?a continued. “Although this was my first time being a superhero and coming into a character like this, as you’ll see in the movie, it can’t happen without the family. And that’s a theme that I think, whether or not you’re Latino, it transcends ethnicity, it transcends color of skin because that’s something that we can all relate from. And I think that that’s really been the most exciting part, is that although it is undeniably or unapologetically Latino, everyone will understand Milagros. Everyone understands Jaime because they’re the people who we’ve interacted with in our daily life. And the problems that they’re facing are problems that we know. And maybe, yeah, there’ll be room for the second or third one to do the crazy alien stuff, but the stuff that you see in this movie, it’s all very tangible and it feels rooted in today’s world. And then it’s 110%, right, because it’s the world that we know, plus a little bit extra.”
What is the Blue Beetle movie about?
In Blue Beetle, recent college grad Jaime Reyes returns home full of aspirations for his future, only to find that home is not quite as he left it. As he searches to find his purpose in the world, fate intervenes when Jaime unexpectedly finds himself in possession of an ancient relic of alien biotechnology: the Scarab. When the Scarab suddenly chooses Jaime to be its symbiotic host, he is bestowed with an incredible suit of armor capable of extraordinary and unpredictable powers, forever changing his destiny as he becomes the Super Hero Blue Beetle.
The cast will also include Susan Sarandon as Victoria Kord, Bruna Marquezine as Penny, Belissa Escobedo, George Lopez, Adriana Barraza, Elpidia Carillo, and Dami?n Alc?zar as members of Jaime’s family, and Harvey Guillen in a currently-unknown role.
Are you excited for DC’s Blue Beetle movie? What did you think of the first trailer for the movie? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
Blue Beetle is currently set to be released in exclusively in theaters on Friday, August 18th.
