Warner Bros. Pictures is set to release its DC Comics adaptation “Blue Beetle” in cinemas on Friday August 18th and the movie is reportedly on track for a $30 million opening weekend according to early projections.
Deadline reports that the film, even with talent not permitted to promote the film due to the strikes, is tracking highly with Latino and Hispanic moviegoers right now. Films aimed at that demographic can over-index in their first weekends, suggesting the number could go higher.
The movie is certainly projected to debut better than Sony’s “Gran Turismo” opening the following week or R-rated talking dog comedy “Strays” opening the same day, which is expected to debut in the mid-teens.
The film recently had a block party premiere in Austin, Texas and Max Blizz reports that the film contains two post-credits scenes with “something bigger” hinted at by the scenes. The future of the character’s status in the DC Universe remains unknown.
Filmmaker Angel Manuel Soto helms the movie, which was planned as the first of a potential trilogy. Speaking with The Playlist, he says the film is very much the “first act of a bigger saga”. Asked what the focus of a second installment would be, Soto says:
“‘Blue Beetle’ [the first film] is Jamie’s story. We wanted to focus on him and his family. By the end of the movie, there will be questions about the scarab, and I hope to answer them. For the next film, I hope to tell the whole story of what happened to the scarab, where he comes from, why he was sent, and hopefully in the end, who they have to defeat.”
Soto also confirms several elements from his abandoned Bane film have made their way into his approach to the character of Carapax (Raoul Trujillo), including a bunch of the character’s backstory.
Xolo Mariduena stars in “Blue Beetle” as Jamie Reyes, who accidentally fuses with an ancient alien biotechnical relic called the Scarab to become the Blue Beetle. The film opens next Friday.