MANILA, PHILIPPINES — As the forthcoming Philippine release of Blue Beetle draws near, the fervor surrounding Inka Magnaye‘s portrayal of Scarab is palpable. However, the excitement doesn’t end there. The collaboration between Warner Bros. Pictures and DC promises an array of captivating elements that are bound to enhance the moviegoing experience. Read on to find out what Blue Beetle filmmakers think will get moviegoers even more excited.
Focus on family
Director Ángel Manuel Soto said, “In this origin story, the family, contrary to other superhero movies where the hero keeps the secret from everybody around him, the secret really happens in front of the family. So, Gareth [Dunnet-Alcocer, screenwriter] always said, ‘Good luck trying to hide a secret from your mom in a Latino household, they always know!’ And we kind of like embraced that, so this made for a very unique journey where the family is part of the adventure, not a group of people or an object of rescue, but on the contrary, an integral part of the construct of this superhero.”
The humor
“Its tone is… it has to be funny,” said Mexican-born Screenwriter Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer. “I’ve never met a Mexican person that wasn’t funny, so there’s no way the movie wouldn’t be funny. But what kind of funny it is, is wonderful, and I think it’s really inspired by the tone of the early Blue Beetle comics, where you have a hero that’s fallible.”
Fun with superpowers
Jaime Reyes’s experience as a new hero in a brand new suit is unique.
“Can he fly? Yes. Is he strong? For sure. Are there big action sequences? Absolutely,” said Producer John Rickard. “But it’s the special abilities of the suit, which are unlike anything else in the DCU, that make it so ridiculously cool because it allows Blue Beetle endless superpowers. He’s literally a 20-something who has a suit that can create anything he can imagine. And so, what does this young kid do with these powers? He pulls from what he knows: pop culture. Things he knows in his everyday life. Our action sequences in ‘Blue Beetle’ are definitely inspired by a lot of gamer combos, which makes it feel like a video game come to life. Those who know will know.”
An all-original city for a new Super Hero
In the comics, Jaime Reyes and his family live in El Paso, Texas, but the studio thought it would be a better idea to create an entirely new setting, a new place unique to the world of Blue Beetle called Palmera City.
“They thought it might make sense to give Jaime and Blue Beetle his own unique city, much like Superman has Metropolis, The Flash has Central City. We loved this idea,” said Producer Zev Foreman. “It suddenly got brighter; it suddenly got more colorful. It suddenly got the idea of water and how it combines with this place. The idea of the different sides of a place like Miami, in terms of the people that live there, the wealth that’s there, and other things. It provided so many awesome opportunities to create a really unique environment in a superhero genre. And, again, it starts to inform the sounds, the music, the feeling, the lighting, all of these things, and I think it was an amazing choice.”
In Blue Beetle, recent college grad Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) 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.
Blue Beetle opens exclusively in cinemas on August 16.
