Blue Beetle Beginnings

“Blue Beetle” is a movie about the origins of the superhero Blue Beetle, a DC character that was created back in 1939. It follows the third reincarnation of Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes, a Mexican-American college graduate who acquired his new powers after an alien biotechnology known as a “scarab” chooses him as his symbiotic host.

The movie’s director is Angel Manuel Soto and its leading actor is Xolo Maridueñ playing Reyes. The movie opened this year in theaters on August 18, and it took $120 million to make.

Should you watch?

The movie tells the story about Reyes gaining the powers of the Blue Beetle and figuring out how to use them. Reyes meets a rich girl, Jenny Kord, with a problem. Her father was the 2nd generation Blue Beetle who died a long time ago. Her father’s sister, Victoria Kord, wants the power of the scarab for herself, so the daughter gives it to Reyes, and the scarab bonds with him. Reyes then uses the power of the Blue Beetle to defeat the forces hired by Victoria to stop forces from killing Jenny.

The movie did a very good job of showing some characteristics of Mexicans and how we would act in some situations. The movie tries to convey these characteristics in a funny way which succeeded, friends and I laughed at some scenes. Like the scene where Jaime’s uncle, Rudy Reyes, witnesses the aftermath of his car and how it’s a total wreck due to bodyguards shooting his car. His reaction of screaming a lot due to the love of that car wouldn’t have been as funny to the audience unless they were familiar with Latino culture (everyone has an uncle with an obsession like this, whether it be cars or anything else). I’m planning on watching this with my Mexican mother and would love seeing her reaction.

They also touched upon the subject of immigration and how it’s a hard process to go through, but it’s even harder to keep going after that. I can personally relate to that feeling coming from the character  Rudy Reyes, because I myself have migrated from Mexico to the U.S. The feeling of coming to the U.S and leaving all those memories behind was hard. But what was harder was figuring out how I would get used to the new life I would have here in the U.S and how I could keep going forward.

To me the movie was a 8.5 out of 10 because of plot twists and storytelling. Some of the CGI in some scenes were a little painful to watch but were quite hilarious to laugh at.  There aren’t many other major complaints I can think of. While some parts of the movie seemed a little too stereotypical, almost everything else did a pretty good job of representing some Mexicans culture.

I also have to say this would be the first DC movie I’ve watched since “Suicide Squad” (2016). I’m more of a Marvel guy too, so I wouldn’t take my suggestion to heart. For Marvel fans, I would say this movie is similar to “Thor: Love and Thunder” (2022) which to me was a humorous movie.

Unfortunately “Blue Beetle” had a pretty awful opening weekend. With an opening of only $25 million, that would make it the second worst DC movie opening, only ahead of “Wonder Woman 1984” (2020) which only had an opening of 16 million dollars, according to the website boxofficemojo.

Imagine being the second lowest? That would be god awful. But not only that, “Blue Beetle” has only made $81 million dollars in the box office, as of August 28, which would be 27% of what was needed to make it to hit the break even point. Dang…

Well as we can see the “Blue Beetle” is looking like it won’t hit “break even point”. But does that mean the movie is bad? Well in my opinion not necessarily. The movie was quite a thrill, it was emotional and it was pretty funny.

Lack of Representation

Latino actors don’t usually get much screen time. In 2022,  Latinos represented just 5.2% of lead actors and 5.1% of co-lead/ensemble actors. Only 3.5% of screenwriters and 2.6% of directors were Latino, according to a study by axios called “New report calls out U.S. media for lack of Latino representation.”

So now knowing the discrimination of Latino actors and actresses in Hollywood, this could potentially lead to more Latino actors being put ignored to the failure of “Blue Beetle” which would be sad to know.

Actor Edward James Olmos, who founded the Latino Public Broadcasting and serves as its chairman, said in a statement for the House Judiciary Committee Hearing on Diversity in America, “White Hollywood does not want to tell the real stories of Latinos. Just because there are several successful Latino actors does not mean that Latinos are making it in Hollywood.” Olmos brings to light the problem that hasn’t been addressed, that for whatever reason, Latinos aren’t as represented in media as they should be.

Break-Even Budgets

“Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny” released in theaters June 30, whose budget was around $300 million, only made a profit of $71 million as of August 28, according to a box office report from The Numbers. That isn’t even 10% of what they wanted to make!

That isn’t the only movie either. “ The Little Mermaid”, “Elemental” and “The Flash” all flopped, with an especially bad case being “Haunted Mansion,” which had a budget of  $157 Million while only making $91 million. That would only be 23% of what they needed to make. That is truly mind blowing how companies this big could lose so much money.

Many movies that have been released this year have flopped and gone under the budget’s “break even point”. The break-even point is the point at which total cost and total revenue are equal, meaning there is no loss or gain for your business, according to SBA.org. To even get to the “break-even point” a movie has to produce 2.5 times what it took to make, because the majority of the revenue does not go to the actual film producers. A portion of the money is spent on taxes and a portion on the theaters. If ticket sales are international, the government of that other nation also receives a portion. Others who’ve also invested in the movies making (stocks) would also get a portion from that revenue.

With that being said, you may ask yourself once again. Why is this guy yapping on about this? The reason why I’ve mentioned all of the above is because, despite “Blue Beetle” being enjoyable (or even a very successful origin story), the profit isn’t very good, so the outcome would be Hollywood will be less likely to produce movies with Latino representation.