Credit: DC StudiosBlue Beetle (2023) is arriving this year, and it could very much set up the DCU future as the first real movie under James Gunn and Peter Safran.
Xolo Maridueña will star as Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle, a super hero who gains their powers once a scarab attaches itself to the teenager’s spine and creates alien armor for the hero. George Lopez is set to star as Rudy, the movie’s antagonist, and the movie was originally meant to release as an HBO Max exclusive, but the new Warner Bros. Discovery leadership pushed the project to be released in theaters.
With a release date set for August, fans haven’t heard anything about the movie, leaving fans to forget that Blue Beetle is coming out. One of the main reasons why some details might not have been shared is due to James Gunn’s new creative direction for the franchise.
Originally, Blue Beetle alongside Leslie Grace’s Batgirl would be projects released on HBO Max and be a new movement of exclusive DC content for the streaming platform. Now, the DC movie sits in this weird spot where the cast and crew have no affiliation with any of the legacy projects, so a lot of fans consider the movie to be in a great place to be the first DCU movie.
Since Blue Beetle won’t be retconned once Ezra Miller’s Flash messes with the Multiverse in The Flash (2023), this DCU movie should be one of the few projects worth the watch in between the huge reset if you care more about what will happen in James Gunn’s DC Universe.
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While Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023) and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023) are set to be some of the last DC projects before the new creative direction. Those movies aren’t really set up to do much for fans. They won’t tease the future like The Flash can, and some of the characters are likely to go away in the reboot, causing fans not to know whether or not the movie is worth watching in theaters.
Shazam 2 already confirms with a tragic box office that having interconnected stories matters, and these upcoming DC movies will suffer financially not having a direct connection to James Gunn’s DCU. Blue Beetle could fall into the same boat as Gunn hasn’t directly said that the movie will launch the DCU, but since it’s a new character and story, it feels like a given that the movie will be in the upcoming reboot.
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According to insider Daniel Richtman, a trailer for the movie should debut on Monday, April 3, and be around 2 minutes and 27 seconds long. Not much more can be said about the trailer, but these things should always be taken as a rumor and not confirmed news since we have no official word on the trailer’s debut. The concept artist, Tiago Datrinti, for the movie also shares the same release date, making it more probable as one fan shares the news:
Datrinti is hyping the blue beetle trailer! It definetly is releasing on April 3rd.
Datrini is hyping the blue beetle trailer! It definetly is releasing on April 3rd. pic.twitter.com/1KB8cfN5Mr
— Blue Beetle Updates (@Bluebeetlenews) April 1, 2023
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This is exciting news if true, and it makes a lot of sense since fans need to have a trailer for the movie if it is set to release in just a few months. Most movies release a trailer six months before, but having nothing to see four months away is shocking, but DC must’ve wanted to hold back on marketing for a good reason. Let’s hope the trailer convinces fans that Blue Beetle is a hero worth seeing in theaters.
Do you think Blue Beetle will be the first DCU movie? Let Inside the Magic know what you think in the comments below!