Blue Beetle Director Initially Had His Eye On A Huge Batman Villain

Before "Blue Beetle," director Angel Manuel Soto had his sights set on telling the story of the big bad brute who broke Batman's back.

Speaking to Den of Geek, Soto said he initially hoped to share with Warner Bros. his ideas of making a Bane movie when the studio contacted him for a conversation about directing a DC film. "I wanted to pitch ideas, and one of them was the Bane origin story," Soto recalled. "I always thought that there was something interesting in exploring his reality and how a character like that comes to be."

Instead, the studio had a different origin story in mind. "There's this character that we've been developing for a couple of years. The Blue Beetle, a Latino superhero," SOto recalled. With that, he directed his energy toward making "Blue Beetle," which premieres in theaters on August 18, 2023, and will showcase DC's first live-action Latino superhero. Besides, Bane had appeared twice before in the live-action realm. The masked strongman first appeared in director Joel Schumacher's 1997 superhero romp "Batman & Robin," but Jeep Swenson's Bane served in more of a supporting role as the henchman for Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman).

However, in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" in 2012, Bane (Tom Hardy) was Batman's (Christian Bale) main antagonist. And while Bane's dastardly deeds included breaking Batman's back, the supervillain got his comeuppance in the film's third act.

"Blue Beetle" stars "Cobra Kai" breakout actor Xolo Maridueña as Jaime Reyes — the third character in DC Comics lore to assume the persona of Blue Beetle. Returning to his home in Palmera City after he graduates from college, Jaime's life takes a wild turn when he unwittingly becomes the host body of Khaji-Da, an alien scarab that provides the young man with a technologically advanced suit that gives him immense powers, thus transforming him into Blue Beetle.

Much in the way that the powerful endoskeleton suit changes Jaime in "Blue Beetle," Maridueña said wearing the costume changed him as an actor. Maridueña told Den of Geek that Hayden Christensen was spot-on when describing the feeling of wearing Darth Vader's costume in his "Star Wars" projects. "I've got to tell you; it makes you feel different, man. It really changes how you feel about the character," the actor told the publication. "There's something about your expression and the way you move that changes."

Essentially, Maridueña added, wearing the Blue Beetle suit was like art imitating life. "Jaime is just as shocked and in disbelief about the whole suit interaction as I was, so it provided a pretty natural reaction," he related.

The first trailer for "Blue Beetle"  was released in April, and it immediately made waves when Uncle Rudy Reyes (George Lopez) says, "Batman's a fascist." However, the ensuing "Fascist Batman" backlash didn't bother Maridueña and Angel Manuel Soto. Talking with Moviemaker, the director said, "We always wanted to have fun with the way Rudy talks about other superheroes ... We're just trying to have fun with the characters that we love. And everybody in our movie loves Batman and Superman and Flash."