Charm City Kings’ Director Angel Manuel Soto To Direct DC’s ‘Blue Beetle’ Adaptation

[Autbot_Benz]

Deadline has confirmed that Puerto Rican filmmaker Angel Manuel Soto has been tapped to direct DC Films and Warner Bros.’ Blue Beetle, the first superhero film that will be led by a Latino character.

Created by Charles Wojtkowski for Fox Comics in 1939, the character Blue Beetle has had a number of superhero alter egos, but the film is said to focus on Jaime Reyes who first introduced in 2006. As the Blue Beetle, the Mexican-American teen from El Paso is known for his high-tech alien armor.

Miss Bala scribe Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, who also wrote the screenplay for the upcoming Scarface reboot, penned the script for Blue Beetle.

Soto directed the 2020 drama Charm City Kings, which has its premiere at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and is currently available to stream on HBO Max.

The Wrap was the first to report this news.

https://deadline.com/2021/02/charm-city-kings-angel-manuel-soto-directing-dc-blue-beetle-warner-bros-1234699364/

[ZariusTwo]

The money is in a big screen Kord/Booster double-act movie dammit.

[Andrew NDB]

What, the CW wasn't returning calls that week?

A freaking Jaime Reyes Blue Beetles movie, and not only has it been 8 years since Man of Steel #1 but Man of Steel #2 (or Superman #1... let's call it Superman #1) is nowhere in sight. Criminal. The whole lot of them should be fired and replaced. They don't understand their own IP.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

What, the CW wasn't returning calls that week?

A freaking Jaime Reyes Blue Beetles movie, and not only has it been 8 years since Man of Steel #1 but Man of Steel #2 (or Superman #1... let's call it Superman #1) is nowhere in sight. Criminal. The whole lot of them should be fired and replaced. They don't understand their own IP.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4a/bf/56/4abf56d73f0a51cf353320a113110f2a.gif

[Autbot_Benz]

What, the CW wasn't returning calls that week?

A freaking Jaime Reyes Blue Beetles movie, and not only has it been 8 years since Man of Steel #1 but Man of Steel #2 (or Superman #1... let's call it Superman #1) is nowhere in sight. Criminal. The whole lot of them should be fired and replaced. They don't understand their own IP.

Agreed a Man Of Steel sequel should have happened by now but for now we gotta settle with Superman and Lois on CW.

[sdp]

Ted Kord is just a super intelligent batman, Jaime Reyes is cool and I'm glad he's getting an adaptation. Superman hasn't gotten a movie because he's a difficult character to write for and they see no way to make him marketable. Superman fans will laugh but it's true. I like superman but I understand why it's difficult to market him, he's like Mickey Mouse an icon that gets no big movies because they would fail and in turn dilute the value of the IP.

[Andrew NDB]

Superman hasn't gotten a movie because he's a difficult character to write for and they see no way to make him marketable.

No he's not, and they're idiots. And they haven't even ever tried.

Superman Returns: "Remember the horrible Donner movies? This is gonna be like them!" And it wasn't even that. Just super-stalking and lame Singer-isms. And it sucked and didn't make good money.

Man of Steel: "Grimdark! Everything is grimdark! Apocalyptic!"* Luckily, the movie itself was pretty good beyond the marketing and did pretty well (about twice what Superman Returns did).

*: I WILL say that third trailer for "Man of Steel" is one of the best trailers I've seen of anything in memory:

T6DJcgm3wNY

That's powerful.

But yeah, that's it. That's their grand efforts to make Superman "marketable" from the past 20 years.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

*: I WILL say that third trailer for "Man of Steel" is one of the best trailers I've seen of anything in memory:

T6DJcgm3wNY

That's powerful.

But yeah, that's it. That's their grand efforts to make Superman "marketable" from the past 20 years.

Man, that took me back to 2012. :tlol:

Was really, really excited to see that in theaters but it didn't work out.

For my money, Man of Steel, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman are the good ones worth rewatching multiple times. Each one flawed in major ways, but still really good.

[Leo656]

I think it's a pretty safe bet that "Man of Steel" is the best and most faithful Superman movie we're ever going to see.

People can whine about it not being an homage to those cheesy Donner movies, but it's positively bursting with comics canon. Now that we're in the "reinvention/re-imagining" phase of comic book movies, the next reboot (whenever it happens) is all but guaranteed to completely disregard the comics entirely.

It's kinda funny how many people completely disregard or ignore Superman 99% of the time, but then when a movie comes out or is discussed everybody's suddenly an expert on the subject. And then they start talking and it becomes obvious that they don't know dick.

I think the biggest problem with the character is, and has always been, people's inherent inability to see past their own preconceived notion of what the character is and should be.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

I think it's a pretty safe bet that "Man of Steel" is the best and most faithful Superman movie we're ever going to see.

People can whine about it not being an homage to those cheesy Donner movies, but it's positively bursting with comics canon. Now that we're in the "reinvention/re-imagining" phase of comic book movies, the next reboot (whenever it happens) is all but guaranteed to completely disregard the comics entirely.

It's kinda funny how many people completely disregard or ignore Superman 99% of the time, but then when a movie comes out or is discussed everybody's suddenly an expert on the subject. And then they start talking and it becomes obvious that they don't know dick.

I think the biggest problem with the character is, and has always been, people's inherent inability to see past their own preconceived notion of what the character is and should be.

Maybe Marvel should take over Superman. :twink: :trazz:

[Leo656]

Maybe Marvel should take over Superman. :twink: :trazz:

Jesus, no. Bendis was bad enough. New 52 was about as close to "Marvel Superman" I ever wanna see, and that sh*t was terrible. And that's 100% what that reboot was, "DC for Marvel Fans." Which is why ONLY Marvel fans liked New 52 and DC fans puked on it.

HARD no from me, dawg.
-------------

More to the topic - sorry, I inevitably get distracted by any and all Superman conversations :lol: - I can honestly say that I tried, but I honestly don't give much of a sh*t about Jaime Reyes. I was more than willing to "give it a shot" and picked up every issue of his first series after they debuted the character and gave him a huge push during "Infinite Crisis"... but man, it was completely unmemorable. I really, REALLY don't wanna say this, but the entire thing was very blatantly a textbook case of "let's sh*tcan a popular white character and recast him with a diversity hire", and in fact was one of the very earliest and strongest examples of it. There was way too much "slice of life" stuff about being an Hispanic kid who happened to be a super-hero, and on the family dynamic and stuff, and not a lot of compelling super-hero stuff going on. The only interesting storyline at all was "Who Is Black Beetle?", and that was never really explored or concluded properly or in any satisfying way, and when it WAS explored, it was mostly in the Booster Gold book, not even in Blue Beetle!

I own and have read the entire Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle first series, but I sincerely never read anything that made me wanna re-read it. It just wasn't interesting, and absolutely none of it made me glad that it was This Kid instead of Ted Kord.

It was like when they brought Jason Todd back around the same time. It's like, "controversial" decisions can work so long as something happens to justify the choice. I was reading 2/3s of the DC line from 2003 to 2009/10, and in all that time I never read a single story to justify WHY Jason Todd needed to be alive again, nor why Jaime Reyes was so much better or more important than Ted Kord. They brought back SO many other dead characters all the way up through "Brightest Day" - including Max Lord, the guy who killed Ted - but Ted just HAD to stay dead "Because Reasons". I didn't buy it. Still don't.

I guess Jaime could have been better if he'd been presented better out of the gate, but he wasn't. He's not a compelling character, and most of his personality is "I'm a Latino teenager!", which... isn't enough. The whole "I can't tell Mamacita that I'm a super-hero, it'd kill her!" stuff got old fast, and there was literally nothing else going on.

They also literally promised us a "Blue & Gold" movie with Ted and Booster about a hundred times, so... yeah. There's really no good reason for this.

[Autbot_Benz]

Maybe Marvel should take over Superman. :twink: :trazz:

we got Superman and Lois now for those that want the big blue boyscout father instead of supergrimdarkman. so everyone kinda wins if they do more with cavill in the movieverse

[Leo656]

There is nothing whatsoever "grimdark" about Superman in MoS or BvS. Jesus Christ. :roll:

Your lies have no place here. It's not the movies' fault you watched them wrong. Read more Byrne/Jurgens/Wolfman Superman comics before you make ignorant statements.

This is literally what I'm referring to when I talk about people who don't know dick propping themselves up as "experts". It's supremely irritating.

[Andrew NDB]

we got Superman and Lois now for those that want the big blue boyscout father

I'm still not convinced. Let's talk again in... 5 episodes.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

we got Superman and Lois now for those that want the big blue boyscout father instead of supergrimdarkman. so everyone kinda wins if they do more with cavill in the movieverse

I'm just trying to torque Leo656. :trazz:

There is nothing whatsoever "grimdark" about Superman in MoS or BvS. Jesus Christ. :roll:

Nuh uh, man. He killed Zod!

If it had been a Marvel movie, we'd probably be on Man of Steel 4 by now.

Jesus, no. Bendis was bad enough. New 52 was about as close to "Marvel Superman" I ever wanna see, and that sh*t was terrible. And that's 100% what that reboot was, "DC for Marvel Fans." Which is why ONLY Marvel fans liked New 52 and DC fans puked on it.

HARD no from me, dawg.

What didn't you like about New 52 Superman? Serious question, because I never read it. Except Lois and Clark were both banging other people, right?

[MikeandRaph87]

I was curious if they were going to go with the minority Blue Bettle or Ted Kord. It is unfortunate that Ted did not get the nod. DC tried and failed three times to push him in his own ongoing and even put him in Brave and the Bold which Ted had to appear to incorporate both of them to appease fans. Since Ted Kord is my sibling's favorite character I am sorry for the continued pushing him aside. There is no telling if this will get out of development hell like so many are at the moment anyway.

[Andrew NDB]

If it had been a Marvel movie, we'd probably be on Man of Steel 4 by now.

We'd be on 3, currently waiting on "Superwoman." But at least there wouldn't be any weird contract stuff with Cavill and he'd probably pop up in various DCEU movies.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

We'd be on 3, currently waiting on "Superwoman." But at least there wouldn't be any weird contract stuff with Cavill and he'd probably pop up in various DCEU movies.

Man of Steel 2 would have had him teaming up with Martian Manhunter to take down the corrupt DEO or Checkmate or some such. "The government can't be trusted!"

Man of Steel 3 would have basically been Justice League 2.5, adapting Tower of Babel and having Batman be a colossal d!ck again. "The government can't be trusted and neither can Batman!"

Then Justice League 4 would have had Superman sacrifice himself to take out Darkseid or the Anti-Monitor and Supergirl would carry on his legacy.

Jimmy Olsen might still be black though. :tshifty::tlol:

[Andrew NDB]

And Darkseid wouldn't be interested in world domination or slavery, he'd just want to save the universe from people hurting the environment.

[Leo656]

"Tower of Babel" was a pretty awesome story, though.

Although the downside of it is, ever since then we've had to deal with the whole "Batman with prep time could beat up, like, Satan" nonsense we've had to deal with in recent years.

It's SO weird to go back to Batman comics from the '80s, or even the early-90s and see him get caught by surprise, or god forbid knocked goofy by a random thug's sucker-punch. He USED to just be a really motivated guy in a costume with anger issues; after Tower of Babel, he's got 97 secret contingency plans for EVERY situation and never loses or even gets put on the defensive because "I'm Batman". Every single thing that happens anywhere, happened exactly that way because it was part of "Batman Secret Plan #1035-C", even when that doesn't make any goddamn sense. And that sh*t is insufferable.

It's like, when people say stuff like "Superman is a boring and predictable character because he's so perfect and can't ever lose", 1. I know I'm talking to an idiot, and 2. I know I'm talking to someone who hasn't read any Batman comics since like 1998. Because THAT GUY is so "perfect and infallible" (aside from the fact he mistreats his friends) that it's absolutely gross.

That one story, though? That was a good story. :lol: Would've been better if the result was Batman realizing he was wrong for being so hyper-paranoid, and dialed it back a shade, instead of doubling- and tripling-down on it for years, though. BUT, we all know Bruce Wayne, for all his supposed intelligence, is incapable of ever learning any lesson that relates to him being an asshole. :trazz: